Dr Fiona Henderson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Research and Innovation Office (RIO). Fiona is research psychologist with a PhD (University of Glasgow) in innovative educational approaches. She worked in a regional NHS Health Improvement team for five years, and has over a decade’s experience working in teaching and research in psychology, education and technology at Aberdeen and Glasgow Universities. Fiona came to GCU as a researcher in the Yunus Centre before transferring to GSBS to focus on social policy research. She moved to RIO in 2018 to pursue international research funding, successfully gaining European-funding totalling over £3.25million for projects including Atlantic Social Lab, CCSI (SI Connect), SEVERE, and 4HCREAT.
Fiona’s transdisciplinary research explores pressing issues impacting community wellbeing and resilience, particularly the impact of climate change on complex socioeconomic systems and community water resilience. She draws together the findings from her resilience and enterprise research with multifactorial societal challenges including the ageing demographic, the social care crisis, and risks to water resilience, to support people’s health and wellbeing through place-based socially innovative solutions e.g. community-owned blue-green space.
Fiona delivers guest lectures in GSBS and SCEBE on a range of topics related to her research, and supervises at undergraduate, Masters and Doctorate level. She is the Academic Lead for UHatch, GCU’s business incubator, assisting entrepreneurial students, staff and alumni to realise their business ideas.