Professor Jo Meehan

Professor of Responsible Procurement | Director of the Centre for Sustainable Business, University of Liverpool

Jo’s research centres on modern slavery in supply chains, social value in public procurement, and the role of power in commercial relationships. She works closely with government bodies providing evidence to support responsible procurement legislation, guidance, and standards.

Her work explores commercial practices that allow social inequalities and environmental harm to persist, and crucially, what might be done to enable systemic change. Her work has won numerous international awards, and has been referenced by the World Bank, the UN, the WHO, the UK Government, CIPS, and numerous corporate organisations.

Prior to joining academia, Jo had extensive procurement experience in the private sector working for a global blue-chip company and she has been described in the business press as “one of the UK’s most influential procurement academics”.

Session | Procuring social value: It’s about time

Social value is increasingly required as a key deliverable in public contracts. But what does social value really mean, and are businesses really delivering it? How can we manage outcomes that are complex, often contested, and do not fit neatly within contract deadlines or project lifecycles. This talk draws on our decade long programme of research to provide insights into the tensions between policy ambition, business practice, and societal challenge, and what we might do about them.