British Academy Fellowship for Jennifer Howard-Grenville

Jennifer Howard-Grenville, Diageo Professor in Organisation Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School, was named a new Fellow of the prestigious British Academy as a member of a new group of 92 distinguished scholars “in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the humanities and social sciences”.

The Fellowship for Jen was announced on 15 July. Of the new British Academy Fellows, 58 are from 25 universities from throughout the UK including 12 from the University of Cambridge in fields ranging from history to archaeology to education. Founded in 1902, the British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences.

Focusing on the grand societal challenges of our times

Jen’s research topics include organisational culture and change, business sustainability, and the grand challenges of society such as climate change and inequality. She has served as Deputy Editor and Associate Editor at the Academy of Management Journal, a flagship journal of the management field, and is also a Fellow at the Academy of Social Sciences. She received her PhD at MIT, her MA at Oxford, and her BSc (Eng) at Queen’s University, Canada.

The British Academy’s citation for Jen, who is a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, notes that her areas of research include: “Organisation studies: business sustainability; organisational culture and change processes; organisations and societal grand challenges; energy transition, technology, and systems change; leading in uncertainty.”

Says Jen:

“I am delighted and honoured to join the select group of scholars who are Fellows of the British Academy. They have used their research to understand and inform the key challenges we face as societies. As an organisational scholar focusing on business sustainability, I am excited to continue to push for the importance of the social sciences to the pursuit of resilient, adaptable businesses and societies. This work will be even more important given the changes and uncertainty wrought by climate change, geopolitical developments and digital technologies.”

Fellows focus on economy, democracy and quality of life

The British Academy’s announcement said its new Fellows “represent a broad spectrum of expertise from the study of 20th century music and the structural causes of poverty to environmental law and the neuroscience of memory, language and cognition”, adding that they “join a community of over 1,800 scholars who share a commitment to advancing the humanities and social sciences”.

Professor Susan J Smith PBA, the new President of the British Academy, said the new Fellows “represent the very best of the humanities and social sciences. They bring years of experience, evidence-based arguments and innovative thinking to the profound challenges of our age: managing the economy, enabling democracy, and securing the quality of human life”.

“Champions of research excellence, every new Fellow enlarges our capacity to interpret the past, understand the present, and shape resilient, sustainable futures,” she added.