Professor Sarah Skerratt is Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), having been the Director of Programmes for two years, heading up research, international, enterprise, policy, public engagement, Fellowship and Young Academy teams. She also delivers to the ‘Inclusive Public Service’ workstream of the RSE’s Post-Covid Futures Commission. Prior to this, Sarah was Director of Policy Engagement at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), where she worked for just over two decades. Sarah is Professor of Rural Society and Policy. For 30+ years, Sarah has researched rural community resilience, disempowerment and poverty, with a more recent focus on rural mental health with the National Rural Mental Health Forum members. Sarah aims to enhance rural and national policy and make a difference in rural communities. Sarah remains research active, working with the Scottish Government on numerous task forces, Scottish Parliament, universities, private, public and third sectors, communities and development agencies in Scotland as well as internationally. Following a two-year secondment with Audit Scotland, Sarah is retained as their rural adviser, having established their Islands Forum in 2017. Sarah is the Scientific Director of the Scottish Consortium for Rural Research (SCRR), is on the Advisory Board of the International Network on Social Disadvantage in Rural Peripheries, and the Scottish Advisory Group of the OECD Rural Innovation Programme.
Sarah joined the IASH Advisory Board in 2020.