Professor Sarah Smith from the School of Economics at the University of Bristol has been awarded an OBE for her services to Economics and Education.

Professor Smith has been a faculty member at Bristol since 2005 and was Head of Economics from 2014-to-2021. She has held previous positions at the London School of Economics, the Financial Services Authority, HM Treasury and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

She is an applied micro-economist whose research covers public and labour economics and is currently working on issues in pro-social behaviour and gender. Her work on legacy-giving was submitted as an impact case study in REF2021.

Professor Smith is founder and co-chair of Discover Economics, a campaign to increase diversity among economics students. She was previously chair of the Royal Economic Society’s (RES) Women’s Committee, an elected member of the RES council, as well as the European Economics Association council.

Professor Smith said: “I am absolutely honoured and delighted to be receive this award.

“I owe a huge debt of thanks to all the people I have worked with and who have supported me over the years. I have been lucky enough in the past few years to work on a cause that I believe in passionately – attracting more diverse students to economics – and I look forward to creating more opportunities for young people to find out about this fantastic subject, and changing their perceptions of economics and economists.”

Sarah would like to acknowledge Lawrence Lockhart – my introduction to economics – who was a dedicated and inspirational teacher. So many people equate economics with “the study of money”, but I learned early on that economics was a way to transform people’s lives, as he shared his experiences in (and passion for) Botswana with us.