Research England Council member
Professor Dina Kiwan FAcSS is a member of Research England’s Council.
Professor Kiwan is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and a Professor of Comparative Education at the University of Birmingham. She is currently the College of Social Sciences Deputy Director for Research (Lead for research impact and knowledge transfer), responsible for developing and delivering an effective and inclusive research and knowledge exchange strategy, including responsibility for all social science REF impact case studies for the university.
She is also Academic Co-Director for the £25 million flagship Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Research Commissioning Centre, and has been appointed by the Home Secretary as a member of the government’s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) (2021 to 2027).
Professor Kiwan has over 25 years of research, internationalisation and equality, diversity and inclusion leadership across a range of UK, US and Middle East higher education institutions. She also has strategic UK and international policy experience, as well as applied non-governmental organisations experience.
Her research is strongly interdisciplinary, having been educated at the University of Oxford, Harvard University and University of London in psychology, sociology, anthropology, and education. Her research focuses on citizenship and inclusion (ethnicity, gender and sexuality, disability, legal status) examined through the lens of migration and education.
With significant experience translating research into impact on policy and practice, she has worked with a range of government departments (Department of Education, Home Office, Ministry of Justice), giving oral and written evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords select committees.
She has consulted with international organisations including UNESCO, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in the fields of citizenship and inclusion. Professor Kiwan’s work has impacted academic and public policy discourses on inclusive citizenship in the fields of citizenship education policy and naturalisation policy in the UK and globally.
Period of appointment: April 2025 to March 2028
Last updated: 11 April 2025