Michael Orton

Michael Orton serves as Senior Research Fellow and Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick's Institute for Employment Research (IER), where he has been based since 2002. His professional trajectory uniquely combines over 15 years of frontline experience in poverty-related roles—including Citizens Advice Bureau management, local government anti-poverty policy work, and ombudsman investigations in both UK and Australia—with rigorous academic scholarship. Orton's institutional affiliation remains firmly with Warwick's IER, a research center operating across traditional school boundaries within the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Orton's research program innovates through dual pathways: first, developing participatory, consensus-driven social security reform via initiatives like the Commission on Social Security project that produced the influential blueprint 'The Plan'; second, advancing strategic communications frameworks to reshape public narratives about welfare systems. His work spans social security policy, poverty dynamics, active labour market interventions, and Sen's Capabilities Approach, consistently bridging theoretical rigor with actionable policy design. This interdisciplinary focus connects social policy, political economy, and communications scholarship.

Analysis of Orton's 15 most recent publications reveals intensifying focus on pandemic-era welfare challenges, with 2020-2023 works emphasizing crisis-responsive policy design, participatory methodology adaptation, and narrative interventions to counter welfare stigma. His research consistently employs co-creation frameworks involving 'experts by experience', moving beyond traditional academic analysis to generate implementable policy architectures. The recurring integration of capabilities theory provides an ethical foundation assessing policies by their impact on human freedom rather than purely economic metrics.

Orton maintains robust research funding streams, currently leading the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's 2024 project on pro-social security communications infrastructure. His grant portfolio demonstrates exceptional consistency, spanning EU Framework programmes, UK Research Councils, major foundations (Joseph Rowntree, Trust for London), and government departments. While specific student supervision details aren't publicized, his project leadership—particularly the multi-year Commission on Social Security involving early-career researchers—suggests active mentorship within collaborative research environments. His policy impact extends beyond academia through parliamentary testimony, media engagement, and direct adoption of research outputs by third-sector advocacy groups.