Martin Knapp

Martin Knapp serves as Professor of Health and Social Care Policy in the Department of Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), concurrently holding a Professorial Research Fellow position at the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC). His institutional leadership includes directing the NIHR School for Social Care Research from 2009 to 2024 and currently leading the NIHR Research Programme for Social Care since 2023.

His research spans dementia care systems, child and adult mental health services, autism support frameworks, and long-term social care economics. With a distinct economic lens, his work consistently emphasizes policy translation—transforming empirical findings into actionable healthcare and social care reforms across UK and international contexts. This dual focus on rigorous cost-benefit analysis and practical implementation has established him as a pivotal bridge between academic research and real-world service delivery.

Analysis of his recent publications reveals dominant trends in pandemic-responsive care home interventions (2020-2022), dementia diagnostic economics, and cross-national aging policy comparisons. His work increasingly integrates life-course health modeling with socioeconomic disparity analysis, particularly regarding metabolic health impacts on aging populations.

His scientific recognition includes:

• Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) awarded in 2022 for services to health and social care policy

As Programme Director for the NIHR Research Programme for Social Care, Knapp oversees substantial grant portfolios focused on care innovation and workforce development. His leadership in the VIVALDI-CT trial directly influenced UK care home testing protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating rapid evidence-to-policy translation. Current grant activities emphasize scaling research capacity in English care homes and optimizing dementia diagnostic pathways through economic modeling.

Knapp anchors his work within LSE's Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC), where he leads multidisciplinary teams integrating health economists, policy analysts, and clinical researchers. The center specializes in real-world evaluation of social care interventions, with recent projects examining autism support systems and mental health service integration across European contexts.