Liz Richardson is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG) at the University of Manchester. She has conducted research on civic participation, behaviour change techniques, neighbourhood governance, local democracy, and public service reform.  She has worked with directly practitioners in neighbourhoods, policy makers in local and central government, local politicians, the voluntary sector, as well as with hundreds of community organisations. Her work has been used to develop policy and practice. 

Her book on community self-help, DIY Community Action, was published by Policy Press in 2008.  In 2009 she co-edited a collection on the challenges of governance for public services and for citizens: Changing Local Governance, Changing Citizens.  Liz is co-author of Nudge nudge think think: using experiments to change civic behaviour (2011) which showcases the use of experimental methods in public policy, including randmomised controlled trails. In her own civic life, Liz is a Director of a community charity, the National Communities Resource Centre, where she set up community training and small grant programmes which have since supported over 5,000 community volunteers.