Lisanne Gibson

Lisanne is responsible for developing and leading the new Faculty of Society and Culture ensuring that it is a vehicle for Northumbria University's vision and strategy. The new Faculty is the largest of Northumbria’s 3 Faculties, comprising around 12000 students and over 700 hundred members of staff, encompassed within 4 academic Schools: Design, Arts and Creative Industries; Business; Humanities and Social Sciences; and Law. 

Lisanne represents the faculty in her role on University Executive working closely with her fellow PVCs, the Deputy and Vice-Chancellor and other university executives to shape and deliver the University’s vision, strategy and supporting plans. 

Lisanne provides strategic, disciplinary, and wider leadership and vision for the faculty and its academic departments, leading and promoting cross University working and strategic external partnerships, enabling empowered people to succeed and be the best they can, and supporting an inclusive, innovative, and high performing culture. 

Prior to joining Northumbria in 2025, Lisanne has held multiple academic leadership roles including as Vice Principal for Research, University of Dundee; Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University; College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Research Dean and Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise, University of Leicester.  

Lisanne is a specialist in the field of Cultural Policy Studies and has held academic positions in globally leading academic units in the UK, USA and Australia, including Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, Research Centres for Cultural Policy at Princeton and New York University’s in the USA, Melbourne University and the Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy at Griffith University, Australia. 

She has produced 4 books, numerous articles, and edited 5 special journal issues on cultural policy and politics, as well as several important cultural sector reports. She is a long-term editorial board member of the field leading International Journal of Cultural Policy Studies and is a co-editor of the book series ‘Palgrave Studies in Cultural Participation’. She has been a member and Chair of multiple research funding and policy steering committees and funding panels in the UK and internationally and is a member of the REF People, Culture and Environment Pilot Panel for UoA20.  

Lisanne researches the relations between culture and 'the social' working across the fields of heritage and museum studies, cultural and cultural policy studies, cultural geography, and sociology. Her research advances understanding of the societal effects of historic and contemporary cultural investment, especially in relation to urban development; policy and value; cultural heritage and, cultural participation.