Sue Yeandle, BA (Hons), PhD, FAcSS, is based in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield, where she is Professor of Sociology and the Director and Principal Investigator of the ESRC Centre for Care.
Sue is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Care and Caring, and was formerly Director (2006-2023) of the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour & Equalities (CIRCLE).
Sue was awarded her PhD by the University of Kent in 1984 and across her career has studied the relationship between work and care, how social and employment policies affect people’s life course experiences of caring roles and responsibilities, and the role of technology in supporting older and disabled people, carers and their networks. She has wide experience of evaluating the impact of carer support initiatives and specialises in comparative international analysis of care arrangements. Sue has led numerous externally-funded research and evaluation projects and has published widely on care, caring, gender and work. She brought CIRCLE to the University of Sheffield in 2015, having first established it as a research centre at the University of Leeds in 2006.
Sue has research connections around the world, throughout Europe and in North America, East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. She was Principal Investigator, ESRC Sustainable Care: Connecting People and Systems programme (2017-21) and Deputy Director, IMPACT (the Health-Foundation/ESRC Adult Social Care Evidence Implementation Centre) from its inception until spring 2022. During her career, Sue has built numerous multidisciplinary research teams in partnership with collaborating universities, industrial partners, government departments, local authorities and charities. She is an experienced PhD supervisor and has helped guide the early careers of many co-researchers and team members.
Sue’s career has included periods of teaching and research at the Universities of Durham, Swansea, Nottingham Trent, Sheffield Hallam and Leeds and as a government researcher. She has been an academic visitor at universities in Australia, Canada, Finland, Northern Ireland and New Zealand. Sue is honoured to have worked closely with Carers UK for over 20 years and of her many connections to the carers’ movement around the world. She continues to work in close collaboration with a variety of care sector partners to further understanding of contemporary issues in care, and regularly provides evidence and advice on social care and carers to governments and parliamentarians in the UK and internationally.