Emergent Research and Consulting Ltd was established in Canterbury by Dr Jonathan Pratt and Steve Matthews in 2010, who bring a combined research and consulting experience of over thirty years to the company.
Dr Jonathan Pratt is an experienced research professional with particular interests in labour markets and local economic development, small businesses, entrepreneurship and social enterprise. He is committed to using research to inform and improve policy and practice at all levels. Over the last 15 years he has designed, managed and analysed telephone, online and street surveys for a wide variety of stakeholders. He has also led many qualitative research projects, including a three year evaluation of community-university partnerships across the South East of England and a national evaluation of social enterprise business support for the Cabinet Office.
Prior to setting up Emergent with Steve Matthews, Jonathan was Research Director at Step Ahead. Previous roles also include postdoctoral research positions at the University of Bristol and London School of Economics.
Jonathan is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, an Associate Member of the Market Research Society and a member of the UK Evaluation Society and the Social Research Association. He has a PHD in Economic Geography.
Jonathan has three young children who take up most of his spare(!) time but is also interested in genealogy and family history and is a keen, if somewhat sedate, cyclist.
Steve Matthews set up Emergent with Jonathan Pratt in December 2010. Before that, he was a Director at Step Ahead Research, where he worked for four years. In previous jobs he was Senior Consultant at the Individual Learning Company; a national Sector and Business Development Manager at Ufi-learndirect, the world’s largest e-learning initiative; and Senior Project Executive at Kent Training and Enterprise Council.
He brings over fifteen years’ research and consulting experience to Emergent, and has particular research and policy interests in education, learning and skills; civil society; and sustainability. He has a number of publications to his name.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, an Associate Member of the Market Research Society, a Member of the Social Research Association, and a Member of the UK Evaluation Society.
A committed “lifelong learner”, he holds a number of university and professional qualifications, and is a fluent Spanish speaker, after a long period of residence in Bilbao before returning to the UK in 1995.
Outside work, he is a local supporter of volunteering, is actively learning about sustainability, reads too much and enjoys a variety of things cultural, especially those with a Latin flavour.
