Christine Skinner BA, DPhil

Professor Christine Skinner has over 16 years of experience as a social policy academic. She has a national and international reputation as a research expert in child support policy and has directly advised Governments in the UK and Korea and policymakers in Australia and Poland. Child support policy (or child maintenance policy) is concerned with the financial obligations of parents in separated families to support their children. She has explored child maintenance obligations using mixed methods involving both quantitative and qualitative techniques and she was a key member of the team that produced the path-breaking national survey of separated fathers in 1999. Christine has led, advised, and directed influential research studies at national, and international levels and is highly regarded in her field attracting commissions from a number of prestigious organizations including; the Economic Social Research Council, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The Nuffield Foundation, and Gingerbread. On many occasions, she has acted as an expert policy advisor on government-funded research projects and advised the Government's Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into child support policy and the Coalition Government's 'Family Support Services Expert Steering Group'. Leading the way in international collaborations and comparative research, Christine has delivered six international research seminars between 2014-2016 funded by the ESRC 'Child Maintenance: International Perspectives And Policy Challenges' (ESRC Award Ref: ES/L000792/1). She has published widely on comparisons of child support schemes across countries.