Richard Wilkinson

Richard Wilkinson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School and visiting professor at University College London and at the University of York. Trained in history, the philosophy of science and epidemiology, he has played a formative role in international research and is the author of several books on health and inequality. He is also the co-author, with Kate Pickett, of the international bestseller The Spirit Level, which was named one of Guardian’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, won the 2010 Bristol Festival of Ideas Award and the 2011 Political Science Association’s Publication of the Year Award, was adapted into the 2015 documentary film The Divide, and has been translated into 24 languages. Its follow up, The Inner Level, was published in 2018.

Wilkinson is the founder of The Equality Trust and recipient of Solidar’s Silver Rose Award, the Irish Cancer Society’s Charles Cully Memorial Medal, and the Australian Society for Medical Research Medal. He was awarded a honorary doctorate by the University of Northumberland in 2025 and is a Fellow by Distinction of the UK Faculty of Public Health.