Dr Mark Robinson

Profile

I am currently Associate Professor in the Management and Organizations Department at Leeds University Business School, where I was formerly Head of Organizational Behaviour. Before moving to the University of Leeds, I started my academic career as a Research Associate in the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield.

I'm an organizational psychologist with interdisciplinary research interests. I often work with engineers, computer scientists, and other social scientists to examine complex societal and business problems in integrated and systemic ways. My main research interests currently fall within four overlapping areas: (1) human performance, (2) socio-technical systems, (3) social psychology, and (4) quantitative research methods.

Within human performance, I am interested in identifying barriers to and facilitators of high performance (e.g., Davis et al., 2025; Robinson, 2012), assessing and developing people's potential (e.g., Robinson, 2018; Robinson et al., 2005; Unsworth & Robinson, 2020), and understanding elite performance (e.g., Brown et al., 2018; Robinson, 2022).

Within socio-technical systems, I am interested in facilitating and optimising people’s work with AI, robots, and other technology (e.g., Behera et al., 2019; Davis et al., 2025), predicting, managing, and preventing malfunctions in complex systems (e.g., Clegg et al., 2017; McKay et al., 2020), and helping people survive accidents and disasters (e.g., van der Wal et al., 2021; van der Wal et al., 2025).

Within social psychology, I am interested in collective behaviour in teams, multi-team systems, and crowds (e.g., Crowder et al., 2012; McKay et al., 2020; van der Wal et al., 2021), social cognition and interpersonal perception (e.g., Bretter et al., 2023; Bretter et al., 2024), and social identity theory (e.g., Radburn et al., 2018; Robinson et al., 2023).

Finally, within quantitative research methods, I am interested in how social scientists can conceptualise and measure variables in more reliable and valid ways (e.g., Robinson, 2018; Unsworth & Robinson, 2020), use new techniques to examine complex systems more dynamically (e.g., Hughes et al., 2012; van der Wal et al., 2021), and incorporate naturalistic data into research (e.g., Robinson, 2022; Robinson et al., 2023).

I have been awarded £3.4 million of research funding (£8.3 million including consortia) from various organizations and research councils including EPSRC, Horizon 2020, and Innovate UK. I am passionate about conducting research with practical applications and my impact case study submitted to REF2014 was commended by the National Assessment Panel.

I am a co-founder and former Director of the M.Sc. Organizational Psychology and Business programme here at the University of Leeds. My teaching and module leadership focuses on that postgraduate programme and the B.A. Business Management undergraduate programme. I also formerly taught on the M.Sc. Occupational Psychology programme at the University of Sheffield. At doctoral level, I have supervised eleven Ph.D. candidates through to graduation and frequently act as examiner.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. Organizational Psychology (University of Leeds)
• M.Sc. Research Methods in Psychology (University of Bristol)
• B.Sc. Social Psychology (Loughborough University)

Professional memberships

• Chartered Psychologist (British Psychological Society) (C.Psychol.)
• Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS)
• Certified Management and Business Educator (Chartered Association of Business Schools) (CMBE)
• Occupational Test User (British Psychological Society)

Current postgraduate researchers

• Chan Yung Chun (YOUNG, Yung)