People

VSSN is run by elected trustees, mostly through voluntary effort, with the support of a part-time Executive Officer.

Main contact

Meg Wright, Executive Officer
E-mail: meg.wright@vssn.org.uk

Trustees

Our Trustees (a.k.a. Steering Group members) and their particular areas of responsibility are as follows:

Karin Y. Biermann (she/her), University of Klagenfurt, Treasurer of VSSN

Karin is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria. The central theme of her dissertation is volunteering by professionals, in particular, qualified accountants. Consequently, the project spans the types of volunteering they undertake, the social and professional expectations of providing a public service voluntarily, and the institutions and organisations involved. She is a Fellow of CPA Australia, an international accounting body.

Ellen Bennet, Sheffield Hallam University

Ellen has been involved in VSSN since starting her PhD many years ago and has always valued being part of an engaged network of researchers from different academic and practice contexts. Ellen has experience of running networks within voluntary organisations, devising and running programmes of engagement and learning activities for network members.

Petra Buresova, Brunel University of London and Centre for Economic Policy Research

Petra’s work in the third sector has focused on building inclusive networks and creating opportunities for engagement. She has organised a number of events and initiatives, including the annual Women in Macroeconomics Conference and the Women in Economics and Young Researchers Initiative at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. She is a Doctoral Researcher at Brunel University London, researching the impact of remote work on leadership in the sector.

Stephen Craker, CEO at Communities 1st

Stephen is dedicated to contributing to the growth of individuals and organisations through sharing knowledge, promoting best practices, creating opportunities and leading effective change. He has a passion for enabling organisations to live up to their potential and has a clear social ethos in high pressure/commercially sensitive environments through an ethical and outcomes driven approach. As a trustee at VSSN, he contributes to the communications working group.

Heather Fulford, VSSN Small Grants Panel

As a VSSN trustee, Heather co-leads the Small Grants Panel and serves as the VSSN representative on the Editorial Management Board of the Voluntary Sector Review Journal. Heather is an experienced social impact evaluator and has led several projects, using a range of qualitative and quantitative measurement approaches, to support non-profits with their impact evaluation.

Jurgen Grotz, Director of the Institute of Volunteering Research, University of East Anglia

Jurgen is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia and the Director of the Institute of Volunteering Research there. Jurgen is an academic and practitioner with 25 years’ experience of applied research, working with voluntary associations and volunteer-involving organisations, with a strong focus on participative approaches. As Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research based at the University of East Anglia, Jurgen is now in a position to support actively the endeavours of VSSN, in particular by promoting understanding of the UK voluntary sector through research and by providing a voice and a meeting place for voluntary sector researchers in the UK.

Daniel Haslam, The Open University

Daniel has been involved with VSSN since 2017 when he first attended the annual VSVR conference as a new PhD student. Before becoming a trustee, he was involved with VSSN through administration of the New Researcher JISC email list, coordination of New Researchers online sessions and organising/hosting the New Researchers sessions at the annual conference.

Caitlin McMullin, Roskilde University

Caitlin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Business at Roskilde University in Denmark. Before coming to Denmark, she held research positions in Canada and completed her PhD at the University of Birmingham. Her research considers the role of third sector staff in engaging service users and volunteers in co-producing services, focusing on community development, social services, and refugee integration. She has conducted research in England, Scotland, France, Quebec (Canada), and Austria. Caitlin has been an Editorial Board Member of Voluntary Sector Review since 2023.

James Rees, Professor of Civil Society and Public Policy, University of Wolverhampton, Vice-Chair of VSSN

James has been an active member of VSSN and the wider voluntary sector research community since at least 2012, having held various research posts at UK universities. In 2024 he was promoted to a chair in Civil Society and Public Policy at the University of Wolverhampton, and is well known for his research and publications in public services, leadership and co-production, as well as contributions in social policy.

Amy Sanders, Aberystwyth University, Co-Chair of VSSN

Amy is a Research Associate in Wales Institute of Social and Economic Data (WISERD) and the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society (CWPS) in Aberystwyth University. Her research interests lie in the intersections between equalities matters and the voluntary sector, as well as the relationship between the voluntary sector and government and has primarily researched these in the context of Welsh civil society. Amy is also interested in advancing approaches which ensure research has policy impact. Before becoming a researcher, Amy worked for over 16 years within the Welsh third sector and cooperative movement in projects that partnered with the public sector to promote civic participation and address inequality.

Bethany Sikes, Research and Policy Manager, Volunteer Scotland

Bethany works in the Scottish third sector through her role as Research and Policy Manager with Volunteer Scotland. Through this she is part of the Third Sector Research Forum and chairs the recently established Scottish Network for Volunteering Research. She is embedded in the practitioner side of the voluntary sector and is well-versed in the realities of conducting voluntary sector research outside of university settings and in collaboration with academics.

Vita Terry, Principal Researcher at The Institute for Voluntary Action Research, Co-Chair of VSSN

Vita has twenty years’ of experience working as a social science researcher developing extensive expertise on the community and voluntary sector, including specialisms in social justice and inequalities, community leadership and empowerment, cross sector collaboration and local level systems change. She adopts qualitative methods to co-produce research, including ethnography, creative methods and film-making. She previously worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership (The Open University) and the Third Sector Research Centre (University of Birmingham). She is currently Co-Chair with Amy Saunders and provides support with VSSN’s strategy, membership and communications and annual conference.

Joanne Vincett, Liverpool John Moores University

Jo has been a VSSN member since 2018 and is keen to be involved in shaping its future direction. She brings her enthusiasm for the voluntary sector as an educator, researcher, volunteer, and executive coach (see her full biography). Jo has leadership experiences as a former Editorial Management Board Member for the Voluntary Sector Review (2019-2022) and former trustee of Yarl’s Wood Befrienders. She leads the development of equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives in VSSN and the communications working group.

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