Fiona Henderson

Dr Henderson is a Research fellow at GCU, and her research focuses on four interconnected thematic areas: i) social innovation; ii) social care; iii) flooding & climate change; and iv) entrepreneurship, particularly social enterprise and community entrepreneurship.

Fiona joined GCU as a researcher on the CommonHealth Focus 50+ project in the Yunus Centre in 2015. Following the completion of Focus 50+ in 2017, Fiona became the Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Social Innovation and Public Policy in GSBS before becoming a Research Fellow in the Research & Innovation Office (RIO). Fiona’s research focuses on common themes of community engagement, social care, climate change, social innovation, risk mitigation and social policy. Since 2017, Fiona has won a number of research grants and as Principal Investigator leads projects totalling c.£275,000 from a range of funding bodies, including the EU Interreg Atlantic Area (Atlantic Social Lab); Scotland’s Centre of Expertise for Waters (How to effectively communicate flood risk and climate change projections in the context of flood risk); and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (The emergence of social innovation in social enterprise). In addition to leading her own research portfolio, Fiona is also a co-investigator on other research projects with colleagues and external partners, and supports international projects within the Research and Innovation office, including SEASIN (South East Asia Social Innovation Network) and SIKE (Social Innovation Knowledge Exchange).
Fiona is a peer reviewer for a number of academic journals, and publishes across a range of topics, including social innovation; social care; social enterprise; flooding & climate change; entrepreneurship; the health and wellbeing of older people; educational technology; and social policy.

Fiona is the Depute Module Leader for Inspiring Action and Creating Change, a twenty-credit module exploring social innovation and supporting Changemakers as part of Ashoka U and the University’s Common Good mission. This module is available to students at all levels of study, and to staff as Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Fiona supervises a PhD exploring the effectiveness of third sector social innovations as non-pharmaceutical interventions for people with dementia. She is also an invited lecturer on third and fourth year courses in GSBS and SCEBE, and supervises Masters’ dissertation students on the MSc Social Innovation

Fiona also manages Uhatch, GCU’s business incubator, assisting entrepreneurial students, staff and alumni to realise their business ideas