Citizen Power team
Steve Broome
Director of Research 
Steve has 12 years experience of researching community regeneration and economic development agendas. He specialises in understanding impact through mixed methods research designs. Steve joined the RSA in October 2008 after working on a London New Deal for Communities programme, where he led evaluation and strategy, community safety and community development programmes.
Rebecca Daddow has worked at the RSA for almost four years and is the project lead for the Peterborough Recovery Capital Project. Rebecca also co-ordinates the User Centred Drug Services Project in West Sussex and has previously worked on the Prison Learning Network. Rebecca is currently studying part-time for her MA in Criminology & Criminal Justice at Kings College London.
Ben joined the RSA in December 2009 after an short internship in the Public Participation team and is now leading on the Civic Health strand of work. In addition to this, he also conducts research for Matthew Taylor on a part-time basis. Before coming to the RSA, Ben completed his BA in Economics and Politics at the University of Manchester in 2008 and went on to travel throughout India and South America, teaching children English in both Mumbai and Manizales.
Originally specialising in international relations, Ben has a keen interest in the issues of community participation, identity and belonging as well as a growing interest in urban design and the work of Richard Sennett.
Director of Public Participation
Sam joined the RSA in August 2009 as Director of Public Participation to lead the organisation's work on citizen engagement and set up and run a programme of research into civic action - the Citizen Power programme. He joined from Ipsos MORI, a social research agency in the UK, where he was Head of Participation Unit, directing and leading their deliberative and participative research. This included major studies for central government departments and local public services. In this time, he produced major reports on the future of citizen engagement and public service reform, which include Activating Empowerment: Empowering Britain from the Bottom Up (June, 2009) and On Whose Account? Developing Citizen-Focused Public Services (July, 2009).
In 2004-05, Sam started his career as a trainee researcher at the public participation research consultancy, Opinion Leader Researcher, specialising in political and deliberative research, including the Power Inquiry’s major project of democratic renewal, Power to the People. After a short period as policy advisor to the Independent Schools Council on issues of education reform, Sam took up a fixed term academic post in the politics department at Queen Mary, University of London, teaching and lecturing on political philosophy (Machiavelli through to Rawls). In this time, he published several articles on political theory and philosophy in major academic journals.
The first person from his family to have undertaken post-compulsory education, Sam graduated with a First Class degree in Sociology, graduating top of his academic year group. The London School of Economics and Political Science awarded him a scholarship to undertake an MSc in Political Sociology, which he passed with Distinction. Sam won the prize for the 'Outstanding Dissertation' for his work on Michel Foucault's political philosophy.
Louise Thomas
The Peterborough Curriculum
Louise Thomas joined the RSA as Education Researcher in March 2008, and has been involved with a number of projects including Opening Minds, the RSA Education Charter (now Whole Education), the Future Schools Network and the Manchester Curriculum. She is now leading on the Peterborough Curriculum strand as part of the RSA’s Citizen Power Peterborough project.Before joining the RSA Louise worked in a range of research roles, most notably a project investigating the situation of refugees and asylum seekers from Ethiopia and Eritrea which she carried out in Cairo in 2005-6. She has a BA in Modern History and an MSc in Development Studies and is nurturing a nascent amateur interest in neuroscience.
Louise is a keen cyclist, swimmer, hiker and cat owner.
Georgina Chatfield (nee Arnold) started in June 2010 as the Programme Manager for Citizen Power Peterborough, and supports the practical delivery and operational management of each of the six project strands.
Prior to the RSA, Georgina worked for Arts Council England for six years in both the North East and in London in a range of interesting roles. Initially as a Project Manager for a £32 million European funded programme across the North East called the Cultural Sector Development Initiative, which culminated in 60 organisations being part of the programme delivering training and business development opportunities for the arts and cultural sector. At this time Georgina was the Lead Volunteer for the World Summit on Arts and Culture – a fantastic experience managing volunteers from across the country, working with delegates from 70 countries on an exciting arts and cultural programme across Newcastle and Gateshead.
As Creative Economy Officer in the North East and London, Georgina lead on research, local authority engagement, skills and training, social enterprise, workspace and art in empty shops/spaces, working in partnership with local authorities, arts organisations, and strategic bodies.
Georgina has a BSc (Hons) in Geography and an MA in Environment, Law and Society, both from the University of Newcastle.
Emma Norris
Emma Norris joined the RSA in January 2010 as a Senior Researcher in the Projects team. Emma works on a range of policy and research projects, with expertise in political participation, community development, poverty and deliberative engagement. Emma is an experienced qualitative researcher and NatCen-trained facilitator. Most recently Emma has been developing the Civic Commons project, aimed at creating a new deliberative space that distributes power and promotes citizenship.
Prior to joining the RSA, Emma worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) carrying out policy projects on in-work poverty, early years education, devolution and the impact of equalities legislation. Emma has previously worked as a consultant to the public sector, a researcher for the first Tibetan NGO and as the President of Oxford University Student Union, and has a BA Hons in English Literature from the University of Oxford.
Susannah Willcox
Susannah joined the RSA in January 2011 as Co-ordinator for the Citizen Power: Peterborough programme, and provides support to Citizen Power team members across six strands of work. Prior to this, Susannah completed internships with the Refugee Council and INTERIGHTS, and gained an MSc in Human Rights with distinction at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Before moving to the UK, Susannah worked as a Research Assistant and Research Program Coordinator at the University of Western Sydney, and completed a BA (Hons) at the University of Sydney, with a focus on philosophy and anthropology.
Jamie Young
Jamie joined the RSA in October 2008, originally to explore the role of design and technology as a medium through which to encourage pro-environmental behaviour change. He currently leads the Sustainable Citizenship project, part of the Citizen Power: Peterborough programme, and is developing a new area of project work around the concept of Ingenuity.
Jamie studied Product Design as an undergraduate at Brunel University before working in knowledge transfer as an Associate with the DTI's Teaching Companies Scheme. He subsequently worked as a design engineer in the energy sector, developing advanced technology products for a variety of industrial and military markets. Jamie also has a MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, in which he specialised in Global Environmental Change and Policy.
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