Sir John Kevin Curtice FRSA FRSE FBA (born 10 December 1953) is a British political scientist who is currently professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde[1] and senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research.[2] He is particularly interested in electoral behaviour and researching political and social attitudes. He took a keen interest in the debate about Scottish independence.[3]
Sir John Curtice | |
|---|---|
 Curtice in 2016 | |
| Born | 10 December 1953 |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse | Lisa Curtice |
| Children | 1 |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Political science |
| Institutions | University of Strathclyde |
Early life
editCurtice was born on 10 December 1953,[4] and grew up in St Austell, Cornwall. In an interview with The Guardian, Curtice said his interest in electoral behaviour began when he was allowed to stay up to watch a results show on television at the 1964 election.[5] The son of a construction worker and a part-time market researcher, he was educated at Truro School from 1965 to 1972,[6] and later at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read politics, philosophy and economics and sang in the college choir as a choral scholar.[7] He described the transition to Oxford as "fairly challenging, coming from a working-class background".[5] Curtice later transferred to Nuffield College as a postgraduate.[8][9]
Commitments and positions
editCurtice serves as president of the British Polling Council, vice-chair of the Economic and Social Data Service's Advisory Committee and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Elections, the Executive Committee of the British Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, and the Policy Advisory Committee of the Institute for Public Policy Research.[1] He was formerly a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and a member of the steering committee of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project.[1]
Curtice has frequently appeared on BBC News during broadcast coverage of general elections in the United Kingdom, giving his predictions of the results in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017.[10] With David Firth he developed the methodology used in the exit poll estimation used in the general election coverage.[11] He has picked up a strong following on social media, and was mentioned frequently on Twitter during the 2017 election, though he shuns this attention, adding "I've no wish to become a media celebrity".[12]
Awards and honours
editCurtice was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1992 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2004.[1] In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[13] In 2017, he was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.[14] Curtice was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to the Social Sciences and Politics.[15]
Personal life
editCurtice's wife, the Rev. Dr. Lisa Joan Curtice, is a social scientist[16] who later retrained as a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church.[17][18] They live together in the West End district of Glasgow[5] and have one daughter.[8]
Books
edit- British Social Attitudes: the 24th report (ed. with A. Park, K. Thomson, M. Phillips, M. Johnson and E. Clery), London: Sage, 2008[1]
- British Social Attitudes: the 25th report (ed. with A. Park, K. Thomson, M. Phillips, and E. Clery), London: Sage, 2009[1]
- Has Devolution Worked? (ed. with B. Seyd), Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009[1]
- Revolution or Evolution?: The 2007 Scottish Elections, (with D. McCrone, N. McEwen, M. Marsh and R.Ormston), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009[1]
- British Social Attitudes: the 26th report (ed. with A. Park, K. Thomson, M Phillips, and E. Clery), London: Sage, 2010.[1]
- British Social Attitudes: the 27th report (ed. with A. Park, E. Clery and C. Bryson), London: Sage, 2010[1]