Professor Iain Ferguson

 Prior to moving into social work education in the early 1990s, Iain Ferguson worked as a social worker and community worker in the West of Scotland. Since then he has taught at the Universities of Paisley and Stirling and until his recent retirement was Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of the West of Scotland (now Honorary Professor). He is also an honorary research fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. His main interests are in the impact of neoliberalism on social work practice, developments in international social work, mental health policy, and the radical tradition in social work. He has written and/or edited several books including International Social Work and the Radical Tradition (Venture Press, 2007, with Michael Lavalette), Reclaiming Social Work: Challenging Neoliberalism and Promoting Social Justice (Sage, 2008) and Radical Social Work in Practice (Policy Press, 2009, with Rona Woodward). With Michael Lavalette and Vasilios Ioakimidis, he is currently writing Radical Perspectives in Global Social Work (Policy Press, forthcoming). He has delivered seminars and given keynote and plenary presentations at national and international conferences including Oslo, Ljubljana, Dubrovnik, Hong Kong, London, Vitoria (Brazil) and Basel. He is a co-founder and Steering Committee member of the Social Work Action Network in the UK and also co-editor (with Michael Lavalette) of Critical and Radical Social Work: an International Journal. He is a lifelong socialist, union activist and political activist, his most recent involvement being in the campaign for a Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum.


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