William McGovern is an Associate Professor within the Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing.  He is the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Director of Patient, User and Public Involvment. He is also 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. 

Will has a undergraduate (BA Hons) and post gradute degree (MA) from Durham University and a Phd from Newcastle University.  He is a professionally qualifed youth worker, community development worker and teacher. Since completing his Doctoral studies in 2017, Will has went on to be awarded an Individual Career Development Grant from NIHR and he has participated in over 30 funded research/consultancy/CPD projects. Will's work is concerned with exploring concerns like inequality, discrimination and stigma and then expaining the experiences of marginalised and underserved communities. 

Will has been involved in and led a number of edited collections of work on Stigma, Drugs and Identity (2022) Safeguarding Children in Schools (2022) Teaching Sensitive Subjects and Topics (2023) An Anthology of Poetry on Recovery (2024).  His newest Edited Collection on Public Involvement and Community Engagement in Applied Health and Social Care Research is open access and will be published on November 10th (2025). 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).