Dr Jana Javornik

Profile

Welcome to my site and thanks for the visit.

I am an Associate Professor in Work and Employment Relations, member of the Faculty Research Engagement and Impact Panel, and an EDI/Ethics Adviser on SMASH (Machine Learning/AI for Science Programme). Until recently, I was seconded to the Government of Slovenia in the role of the Director-General of Higher Education.

I joined Business School in 2018, after my tenure at the University of East London (Associate Professor in Social Policy and Director of Noon Centre for Equality and Diversity in Business). Prior to that, I was a research fellow in Sociology and Social Policy at Leeds and Umea University in Sweden.

Prior to joining academia, I spent a decade in policy making as Senior Policy Adviser for central governments and high-profile international organisations, including the European Commission, World Bank, and ILO. Among others, I was Editor-in-Chief of the UNDP national Human Development Reports and Stability Pact Project Manager for the Balkans, having developed programmes on gender empowerment under the auspices of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. I helped set up its Gender Task Force and a CEE Network for Gender Issues, comprising gender organisations from Eastern Europe and the CiS, North Africa, and the Middle East, now serving as their Adviser.

Academic Citizenship

I  am  a member  of  Transforming  Care  Scientific  Committee and  Special  Interest Groups  of  the  international  Work-Family  Researchers  Network.  I  serve on the Editorial Boards of Work, Employment & Society; International  Journal  of Care  and  Caring; and  Journal  Druzboslovne  razprave  (by  the  Slovenian  Sociological  Association); and as Associate  Editor of the Journal  of  Family  Studies and Guest co-Editor of Journal  of  Comparative  Policy Analysis.

Positions in strategic advisory bodies / Public Policy Engagement and impact

- Women4EthicalAI expert platform, UNESCO
- International Advisory Board, University of Ljubljana
- Working Group Member for Family Law change, Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs, and Equal Opportunities, Slovenia
- Expert Adviser to the Slovene Minister for Economic Development and Technology, Member of Strategic Advisory Board, Slovenia
- National Institute for Public Health Advisory Board and Expert Groups Member (long-COVID and Education), Slovenia
- Expert Group, Sexual Violence and Harassment in HE and R&I, Slovenia
- Sledilnik - COVID19 Tracker
- Podnebnik - Environment Tracker
- Business in the Community – Prince’s Responsible Business Network (ESRC IAA Fellow)

- Barking and Dagenham Equalities Sub-Group (Advisory Board Member)
- European Institute and Institutional Investor (Consultant: FTSE-100 CFOs and COOs)
- EPRD Office for Economic Policy and Regional Development (national Expert) UK Commission for Employment and Skills, UK Futures Programme (expert) 2017-2020 – The Economist Intelligence Unit: Work-family policies across the world (Academic Consultant)
Family Policy)
- Race Disparity Unit (Expert)&  Scottish Government: Children and Families Unit and Scottish Childcare Commission and Childcare Alliance (Expert)

My work  has  led  to  the  production  of  high  profile  policy  reports, including co-authored  Social Situation  in  Europe  reports  for  the  European  Commission,  Human  Development  Reports  for  the  UNDP, and a  range  of  reports  for  Slovenian  central  government.  I  contributed to the UKCES report  on Futures  programme,  exploring  employers'  initiatives  around  gendered  opportunity  gaps,  looking specifically  at  high  and  low  pay  sectors, and to the Scottish childcare programme.

Media Engagement

I pen for and my research has been featured in The Economist, The Conversation, Guardian and Observer, Financial Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, Telegraph, Vecer, Dnevnik, Delo, Finance. I comment for the BBC (radio and TV), TNT, and Slovene national radio and TV. 

Research interests

1. Comparative work-family policies and their impact across social groups and welfare states, the persistence and change of inequalities at the intersection of production and social reproduction.
2. Equality, diversity and inclusion in the labour market; opportunity gaps in the labour markets; recruitment, retainment and progression; diversity management and changing organisational practices more broadly.
3. EDI and Ethics in AI.
4. Conceptualisations and methods of comparative policy analysis; indicator development and (policy) data visualisation.

Geographi Focus: the Nordics, Central and Eastern Europe, and the United Kingdom.

Research Fellowships and Affiliations 
University of Nova Gorica / European Commission, SMASH ML/AI programme
Institute of Contemporary History, Slovenia
Center for Effective Organizations, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, USA

Utrecht University, NL (ERC)
Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), University of Stockholm, Sweden (InGRID-2)
Central European Labour Studies Institute (CELSI)
University of Alberta, Canada
University of Iceland, Iceland

Qualifications

• PhD in Comparative Social Policy, University of Southampton
• MA in Sociology, University of Ljubljana
• MA in Comparative Social Policy, Maynooth, Bath, Roskilde, Pavia, Madrid, Bergen, Leuven
• BA Sociology, University of Ljubljana

Student education

I supervise across all levels and teach on undergraduate and postgraduate courses on topics related to work-family policy, employment and public policy, gender inequality, diversity management, human resource management, social policy, and research methods.

I currently supervise the following PhD researchers at LUBS:

Ms Riya Chaudhary (a project on care workers in India)
Ms Huizhi Deng (a project on public sector staff motivation in China)    
Miss Yuqi Ji (a project on Asian women’s experience in the British labour market)   
Mrs Rebecca Lamont Jiggens (a project on Reasonable justice: critical disability judgments in UK employment law)   
Mr Alvy Riasat Malik (a project on gender pay gap in Bangladesh)   
Ms Clare Matysova (a project on parents’ experience with Shared Parental Leave in the UK)

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change

Current postgraduate researchers

• Clare Matysova
• Alvy Riasat Malik