Professor Sue Yeandle
BA, PhD, FAcSS, OBE
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Professor of Sociology
Director of CIRCLE (Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities)
+44 114 222 6485
Full contact details
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Sue is Professor of Sociology in CIRCLE, the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities, a Faculty of Social Sciences research institute. She became a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in autumn 2020 and was awarded the OBE for Services to Research into Care and Caring in the King’s Birthday Honours in June 2025.
Now semi-retired, Sue established the ESRC Centre for Care in 2022 and was its Director and Principal Investigator until 2024. She was also principal investigator for the ESRC-funded large grant programme Sustainable Care: connecting people and systems (2017-2021) and Founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Care and Caring from 2016 to 2024.
Sue joined the University of Sheffield in October 2015 after almost ten years at the University of Leeds, where CIRCLE was first established in 2007. Her career has also included periods studying, teaching and researching at the Universities of Bradford, Kent, Durham, Swansea, Nottingham Trent and Sheffield Hallam.
- Research interests
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During her career Sue has specialised in comparative international analysis of care arrangements and in evaluating the impact of carer support initiatives. Her research and scholarship have also focused on the relationship between work and care, how social and employment policies affect how women and men manage family and caring roles and responsibilities throughout the life course, and the role of technology in supporting older and disabled people, carers and their networks. She has led more than 40 externally funded research projects and published widely on care, caring, gender and work.
In addition to her major projects and programmes at Sheffield listed above, Sue's research has also included major studies on the everyday lives of older people with care needs who use technology to support independence in the home (AKTIVE, 2011-14, Technology Strategy Board award) on carers, employment and services (2005-07, EU EQUAL award to Carers UK) and on gender and employment in local labour markets (2003-06, HEESF award).
She has participated in many international collaborations and is honoured in her many connections to the carers’ movement around the world and to work closely with the national charity Carers UK.
Sue currently works part-time. In 2024-25 she finalised her new book, Carers Organisations and their Impact: the creation of a global movement (forthcoming in 2026 from The Policy Press); served on the Advisory Panel established to support the Independent Review of Carer’s Allowance overpayments (the Sayce Review) commissioned by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions; and was supervisor to five PhD students.
- Research group
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Sue’s current PhD students are studying: care and family life among migrant workers in China (Yingzi Shen); care workers and risks to their wellbeing (Nick Morgan); the relationship between unpaid care and paid employment (Christie Butcher); the financial costs of unpaid care (Harriet Ann Patrick); and the role of male care workers (Ella Monkcom). Due to her forthcoming retirement, Sue is no longer accepting new PhD students.