Skip to content

Professor Carl MacRae

Research Professor, THIS Institute

Carl Macrae is a Research Professor at THIS Institute, focusing on the management and integration of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare, and system-wide approaches to learning and improvement.

Carl studies how people and organisations learn, innovate and improve in complex systems, and how risk and safety are regulated, governed and managed. He works at the interface of research, policy and practice and has previously held national advisory roles at England’s Care Quality Commission (CQC), the NHS National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), and the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB). Carl has also acted as Specialist Advisor and been called as an expert witness to Parliamentary Select Committee inquiries on healthcare safety investigation and associated legislation.

Carl is a fellow of the British Psychological Society and the Academy of Social Sciences and was one of the founding cohort of Health Foundation Improvement Science Fellows 2011-2014. He holds a part-time professorship at the University of Nottingham and is an Honorary Professor at the SHARE Centre for Resilience in Healthcare, University of Stavanger, Norway. He has previously held research fellowships at Imperial College London, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Oxford and University of Leicester, and has been an academic visitor at Stanford University, University of California San Francisco and Australian National University.

Research Interests

Carl’s research explores the practical work of learning, innovation and improvement in complex systems, particularly those that manage significant risks, face considerable regulatory scrutiny and incorporate sophisticated technologies. His interests focus on understanding the sociotechnical nature of risk and resilience, and how disruptive events and innovations are interpreted, organised around and learnt from. He is particularly interested in the challenges associated with automation and Artificial Intelligence and how these disrupt or transform cognitive work. His research focuses on healthcare but also engages with and seeks to learn from other sectors including aviation, autonomous vehicles and energy.

Sign up to receive the latest news, reports and articles from THIS Institute.