Dr Ryan Nolan
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Management
About me:
Dr Ryan Nolan is a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter Business School, where he studies how organisations and institutional fields respond to complex sustainability challenges. His research explores field emergence, strategic agency, and the construction of desirable futures in domains such as the circular economy, biodiversity renewal, and nature-positive business. Grounded in organisation theory and informed by relational sociology and practice theory, his work combines qualitative research with computational methods, including social network analysis and topic modelling.
Ryan joined Exeter in 2022 and is currently part of the NERC-funded RENEW project (Theme 4: Business and Finance), supporting efforts to align business practice with the UK’s climate and nature goals. He previously contributed to the delivery of the UKRI Circular Economy Hub, part of the National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research Programme. He is affiliated with the Exeter Centre for Circular Economy, the Exeter Centre for Leadership, and the Global Systems Institute.
He serves on the editorial board of The Sociological Review and regularly contributes to practitioner and policy-facing publications.
Qualifications:
- BA(Hons)
- MA
- PhD
