Staff

Simon Burall is the Director of Involve. He has long and extensive experience the fields of democratic reform, governance, public participation, stakeholder engagement, and accountability and transparency. He has worked at the national level in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as on related issues of global governance and democracy.

In addition to his role with Involve, Simon is also the Chair of Democratic Audit, an Ambassador for WWF UK and a member of the Steering Committee of the ScienceWise Expert Resource Centre.

Before moving to Involve Simon was a Research Fellow at ODI from 2006 - 2009. His interests included stakeholder engagement in the reform of the international aid delivery system and how to make development finance more effective. Prior to this he was the Executive Director of the One World Trust from 1999 - 2005 where he initiated and oversaw the development of the influential Global Accountability Index. Before joining the Trust, Simon re-established the UK volunteer network for AFS, an organisation based in Leeds co-ordinating intercultural exchange visits. Simon has taught both science and English in Namibia and Zimbabwe and was an election monitor in Bosnia Herzegovina in 1997.

Edward Andersson is the Deputy Director of Involve, and an established expert on methods of participatory decision making. He set up peopleandparticipation.net - the UKs leading public engagement site, and has advised a number of organisations on public engagement strategies, including the Home Office, the European Commission, the OECD and numerous Local Authorities and Health Trusts. His research covers how to measure the business case for engagement, achieving efficiencies through engagement, and involving the public in the challenges of our ageing society.

He is a Professional Facilitator (Certified by the International Association of Facilitators), sits on the National Expert Panel on Local Governance for the Department for Communities and Local Government and is a board member of the international not-for profit e-Democracy.org.

Janice Thomson is EU Public Engagement Advisor for Involve and is based in Brussels. Her work focuses on understanding and enhancing public participation at European Union level. She is currently developing projects, educational programmes and communications to expand Involve's activities in this area.

Previously she worked in member engagement for a European NGO network of social service providers and on two EU citizen engagement projects. She has degrees in political science and demography and spent over a decade as a marketing researcher and strategic advertising/brand planner.

Ingrid Prikken is Project Manager at Involve and joined the team in March 2010. Her work is focused on project management, project design, research and facilitation. Ingrid's' background is in public policy, public affairs and stakeholder engagement. Before joining Involve, Ingrid worked as an independent consultant with a number of organisations in the field of engagement in the UK for a range of clients in government and third sector organisations. Previously she worked on influencing policy on international development for a political lobby organisation based in The Hague and Brussels. Ingrid also has good understanding of local government issues, as she worked as a policy advisor on civic integration for one of Amsterdam's district councils.

Ingrid holds an MSc in Human Geography with a specialisation in Geography of Developing Countries. For her Master thesis she conducted a six month research project on transnational migration networks in Bolivia and Argentina. Ingrid is multilingual, speaking English and Dutch fluently and has a working proficiency in Spanish.

Eddie is working on the Pathways Through Participation project, a qualitative study exploring how and why people get involved and stay involved in different forms of participation in their communities. The project is in partnership with NCVO and the Institute for Volunteering Research, where each organisation has a history of researching the different forms of participation that will be explored together in the project.

Eddie is trained in research methods, having recently completed his MSc in Management and Business Studies Research. His previous research has focussed on sustainable communities and sustainability within the Higher Education curriculum. His personal research interests are the barriers to citizen governance and the privatisation of public space.      

Thea is a Researcher and the Team Coordinator for Involve. Thea has conducted research on citizen deliberation at a global and national scale and is practised in different methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis, training and consultation and event management. Thea coordinates the smooth running and organisation of Involve and the Involve team. Thea has managed a number of different sized engagement events, alongside facilitating numerous local government consultations on public service planning and delivery.

Thea event managed the UK leg of the World Wide Views on Climate Change global citizens' conference, and has since worked hard to raise Involve's profile in the field of international deliberation. More recently Thea has written a piece of practical guidance on running informal engagenment events for the Improvement and Development Agency, and a report on the value of engagement for Consumer Focus England. Thea has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Nottingham and an MA in International Relations from Kings College London.