William McGovern is an Associate Professor within the Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing.  He has previously been the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Director of Ethics and also Director of Patient, User and Public Involvment. He is currently the Public Involvement co-lead for the NIHR National Evaluation Team: IDEAS.  Will is a widely recognised as a subject expert in the field of Substance Use and Recovery and also an emerging expert on Public Involvement, Engagement, Mental Health and Well Being. He has over 30 year experience as a drug and alcohol practitioner, public involvment lead, researcher, academic and community activist. 

Since completing his Doctoral studies in 2017, Will has went on to be awarded an Individual Three Schools (mental health) Career Development Grant (2023) and subsequent continuation Prevention grant award (2026) from the National Institute for Health Research.  He has participated in over 40 funded research/consultancy/CPD projects and has led funded research on Serious Violene and Criminal Exploitation, Stigma, Trauma and Domestic Violence and Recovery from co-occuring Mentl Health and Substance related concerns. Will's work is concerned with intervention development, process evaluations and exploring concerns relating to  inequality, discrimination and stigma. 

Will is committed to promoting public involvement and engagement and bringing policy makers, academics, practitioners, people with lived experience and carers together to learn from the experiences of marginalised communities and to find more creative ways of working together.  He has just completed a new Open Access Edited Collection of work on Public Involvement and Community Engagement in Applied Health and Social Care Research. He is in the process of editing another open access collection on Public involvment and Lived Experience in Higher Education Institutions: due for publication December (2026).