Dr. Lorraine Johnston (PhD, CMI, SFHEA, FHEA) is Associate Professor. Current academic leadership roles include - Head of Subject for Leadership & Management Development (since 2020), and Interim Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange, Newcastle Business School. Previously, Lorraine served as Faculty Strategic Coordinator representing Research Interest Groups (RIGs) on the Departmental Research and Knowledge Exchange Group (DRaKE). In 2012, she founded and convened  the Public Policy & Public Management (3PM) Research Interest Group to foster interactions between academia, policy and practice communities through a guest speaker series.

Prior to academia, Lorraine worked as a practitioner in local government (with Newcastle City Council). Her research interests in public management, public participation, public service reform and complexity in local and regional governance. Funded research includes leading on evaluation, consultancy and partnership work with higher education Institutions; local and regional governments (including combined and directly elected Mayoral authorities). Interdisciplinary approaches seek to address the complex challenge of public service reform and its impact on people and place. Recent collaborations include:

• One Million Women and Girls North East (Since 2022), advancing the debate on 'What women want from a combined authority?' to advance inclusive public service reform.
• TRANSABE (2024-2025) A British Council funded project promoting cross-cultural global education partnership in advancing sustainable architecture and built environments through collaboration with experts from Northumbria, Newcastle and Galala Universities (with Salama et al.,).
• A Research England (2021-2022) funded comparative study of university-driven city-wide place-based services (Newcastle, Amsterdam and London).

Lorraine is a member of specialist and learned societies as the Political Studies Association (PSA) Local Politics and Governance group; Regional Studies Future Leaders Initiative; Women in Regional Science Initiative and the Public Administration Committee Learned Society in Public Administration (with colleagues at Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow universities). 

Recently, she was nominated in Newcastle City Council’s Inspirational International Women’s Day celebrations which marks the contributions of women to equality, diversity and inclusion and regeneration across the city Newcastle (March 2025).

Co-authored publications include: Public Enterprise and Local Place: New Perspectives on Theory and Practice (2020, Taylor & Francis); and, Leading Local Government: A Place for Elected Mayors? (2020, Emerald Publishing).

As an experienced educator Programme Leader, Module Tutor she works across MSc; MBA, UG and Degree Apprenticeship levels including: MSc Public Leadership (Degree Apprenticeship in partnership with local and national government agencies; charities; policing and the national health service); MSc Strategic Leadership for Public Services (Degree Apprenticeship with business communities); MSc Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship (with local entrepreneurs; business professionals and start-ups). Business, Economy and Society.

Current Supervision of RDF funded PhD Projects with:

• Chloe Munro (with Dr. Ali Memon & Dr. Tamara Mulherin)
• Adam Ruddock (with Dr. Ali Memon)
• Mark Dimelow (with Prof. David Jones)
• Khoi Nguyen (with Prof. David Jones; in collaboration with Dr. Stephen Teo (La Trobe, Australia) & Dr. Diep Nguyen (Newcastle, Australia).

Lorraine welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD students seeking to undertake research-focused projects that seek to make a difference and are related to the above research themes. To discuss potential research projects, please email -  [email protected]