Sam is a ‘pracademic’: a facilitator, award-winning researcher, evaluator and teacher dedicated to helping organisations and initiatives navigate and steward transformational change towards regenerative and ecocentric futures. Sam’s interests span the social and natural sciences, including societal transformations and transitions, transformation-focused evaluation, regenerative dynamics and practice, ‘new economics’, food systems, ecology, and nature conservation. He strongly believes that reconnecting people with the natural world is critical for overcoming global crises.

 

Sam has internationally recognised expertise in developing approaches to evaluation that drive transformational change, as well as concepts around regenerative systems and regenerative practice, co-creating the Regenerative Lens framework in 2023. His publications have received over 400 citations, and include 25 peer-reviewed journal articles, over 20 reports, and over 37 other published articles. As a researcher with the FixOurFood programme at the University of York, he has advised and contributed to the likes of the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment, Global Assessment for a New Economics (GANE), the International Evaluation Academy, Unearthodox, the Transformations Community, and Collaborative for Bioregional Action Learning & Transformation (COBALT). Closer to home, he has also advised the Good Food Cycle food strategy for England, the new York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, and the York Climate Commission.

As a consultant facilitator and evaluator, Sam has helped organisations such as North Yorkshire Council, North Yorkshire Sport and the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement to develop transformation-focused strategies for action, particularly using the Three Horizons framework and practice. He is an accredited facilitator with the Association of Facilitators and a Friend of the International Evaluation Academy. Sam is also an ecologist and naturalist, and has led fieldwork training for various nature conservation charities. He is currently Chair of the British Plant Gall Society, an expert referee for the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, and a Field Studies Council tutor.

 

Sam has an MA in Biological Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, winning the Frank Smart Prize for Botany and the Bhagwati Prize for Biological Sciences. He also holds an MSc in Environmental Economics and Environmental Management from the University of York, winning a departmental prize. In 2025 he completed a PhD in Human Geography and Environment, also at the University of York, focused on how evaluation practice can catalyse transformations towards regenerative futures.