Professor Mike Saks presents 'Regulating the Professions'
Zoos, circuses or safari parks?
Location: The Auditorium, UCS Waterfront Building, Ipswich
Date: 6 June 2012
Time: 5.30pm - 7.30pm
The professions are a very important occupational group in society that at their best bring ethically based, high level expertise to the service of clients and the wider public. However, in recent years there has been a more critical approach to professions which has, amongst other things, challenged their distinctive knowledge base and their orientation to the public interest.
This has prompted governments to consider various regulatory means of enhancing their operation. Using metaphors from the animal kingdom to understand different regulatory approaches – such as zoos, circuses and safari parks – this inaugural lecture considers a range of models of professional regulation and how professions might best be managed in society in future.
This framework enables Professor Mike Saks to reflect on his experience of researching, writing about, and working with professions over many years in a national and international context. Illustrations in the presentation are drawn from across the professions, but particularly focus on health and social care – a species of professional group in which he has considerable specialist expertise.
Profile
Professor Mike Saks
Professor Mike Saks is Provost and Chief Executive at University Campus Suffolk. He was previously Senior Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Lincoln and Dean of the Faculty of Health and Community Studies at De Montfort University.
Professor Mike Saks is Provost and Chief Executive at University Campus Suffolk. He was previously Senior Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Lincoln and Dean of the Faculty of Health and Community Studies at De Montfort University.
He was educated at the University of Lancaster, the University of Kent and the London School of Economics, where he obtained a PhD in Sociology. He has published twelve books on professions, research and health care and given numerous keynote presentations at national/international conferences on these themes.
In addition, he has been a member/chair of many NHS committees– acting as an adviser to government departments and professional bodies such as the General Medical Council and the General Social Care Council. He is a previous Chair of the Research Council for Complementary Medicine and the UK Human Tissue Bank.
Internationally, he has participated in a number of funded research projects, ranging from the changing attitudes of phsyicians with the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow to care in the community with the University of Toronto. He is the current President of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Professional Groups.