Professor Sophie Harman, BSocSci Politics (Manchester), MA International Political Economy (Manchester), PhD Politics (Manchester)

Profile

Sophie is Professor of International Politics with a specific interest in global health, African Agency, film and visual methods, and gender politics. She has published eight books and numerous peer reviewed articles on these subjects. Her recent book, Sick of It: the global fight for women's health, was published in July 2024 by Virago/Little Brown, and was The Observer's Book of the Week. 

She was awarded the Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding professional achievement by a mid-career scholar by the Political Science Association (PSA) in 2018, the Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2018, and nominated for the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer in 2019 for her feature film Pili.

Sophie’s COVID-19 work has included being a founding member of the Gender and COVID-19 working group, a joint collaboration with UN Women, advisor to the CIHR Gender and COVID-19 project, a series of videos on Global Health Security for the Mile End Institute, sharing global health teaching materials, and various briefings to the UK government and UN on different aspects of the global politics of COVID-19.

She has undertaken research projects on Women and Global Health, Global Health Governance, the World Bank and HIV/AIDS, partnerships in health in Africa, the 2014/15 Ebola response, the governance of HIV/AIDS, and her film project, Pili. These interests have informed her teaching on the modules Global Health Politics, Africa and International Relations, and Global Governance.

Sophie’s teaching and research draws on her extensive fieldwork experience in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and the global health and international political economy hubs of Geneva, Washington DC and New York.

In addition to her research and teaching, she is Visiting Professor at HEARD, University of KwaZulu-Natal, and acts as mentor as part of various QM and external initiatives. She was pivotal in establishing the British International Studies Association (BISA) Global Health Working Group and was co-editor of the Review of International Studies 2015-2019. She has consulted to WHO and UNDP.

Sophie began her academic career with a PhD at the University of Manchester. She then went on to posts in CSGR, University of Warwick, and the Department of International Politics, City University, before joining QMUL in 2012.

Office hour joining link

Research

Research Interests:

Sophie conducts research on Global Health Politics, Africa and International Relations, Gender and Feminist IR, film, and visual politics.

She has expertise on: the politics of COVID-19; Global Health Governance; the 2014/15 Ebola outbreak; HIV/AIDS; film-making as method; African agency and the Tanzanian state, and women and gender in global health.

She also knows stuff about film production, academic publishing, women in academia and mentoring, judging book prizes, and being a Director of Teaching.

Her research background is in International Political Economy.

Examples of research funding:

• Advisor, ‘The Gender and COVID-19 Project’ Canadian Institutes of Health Research, https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/gendercovid.html, CAN$494, 524
• Philip Leverhulme Award, 2018, £100,000
• Axa Insurance Outlook Award - ‘Expired on the Shelf: Everyday Risk and HIV/AIDS’ - €250,000
• HEFCE Student Opportunity Fund - £24,000 (with Cathy McIlwane, School of Geography, QMUL).
• Queen Mary Innovation Fund ‘Expired on the Shelf’ (PI) - £7.500.
• Wellcome Trust Small Grant 2012 ‘Leadership in Global Health Governance’ (Principal Investigator) with Simon Rushton, Aberystwyth University, £5000
• Equinet Global Health Diplomacy, 2012-2013 (with University of Sheffield, University of Zambia, University of Dar es Salaam), £40,000
• ESRC Seminar Series award 2010/2011 African Agency in International Politics (Principal Investigator) with Will Brown, Open University (Co-Investigator), £18,000
• ESRC +3 PhD Scholarship (2004 – 2007)

Publications

Books

• Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health, (Virago/Little Brown: London, 2024) The Observer Book of the Week
• Global Health Governance (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012; 2^nd edition, 2024)
• Seeing Politics: Film, Visual Method, and International Relations (McGill Queens University Press, 2019).
• (with A. Barnes and G. Brown) The Global Politics of Health Reform in Africa: Participation and Performance (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015).
• The World Bank and HIV/AIDS: Setting a Global Agenda (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010).

Edited Books

• (co-edited with Franklyn Lisk) Governance of HIV/AIDS Responses: Making Participation and Accountability Count (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009).
• (co-edited with William Brown) African Agency in International Politics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013).
• (co-edited with David Williams) Governing the world? The practice of global governance (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013).

Feature Film

• Pili

Nominated for the BAFTA for outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer, 2019.

Winner Hitchcock Public Award, Dinard Film Festival.

Articles

1. (2024) ‘WHO and COVID-19: Stress testing the boundary of Science and Politics’ International Relations (with Sara E Davies) https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241248548
2. (2022). ‘The UN Security Council and gender in health emergencies: what comes next?’ Australian Journal of International Affairs, 76(1): 22-26, DOI: 10.1080/10357718.2021.2017839 (with Clare Wenham). 
3. (2022). ‘Using Gender Analysis Matrixes to Integrate a Gender Lens Into Infectious Diseases Outbreaks Research’, Health Policy and Planning, 37(7): 935-941, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab149 (with Rosemary Morgan, Sara E Davies, Huiyun Feng, Connie C R Gan, Karen A Grépin, Asha Herten-Crabb, Julia Smith, Clare Wenham).
4. (2021). ‘Threat not Solution: Gender, Global Health Security, and COVID-19,’ International Affairs, 97(3): 601-623.
5. (2021). ‘Global vaccine equity demands reparative justice – not charity’ BMJ Global Health, 6e006504 https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/6/e006504 (with Parsa Erfani, Tanashe Goronga, Michelle Morse, Jason Hickel, and Eugene Richardson).
6.  (2021) ‘More than a public health crisis: A feminist political economic analysis of COVID-19,’ Global Public Health, 16: 1364-1380, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2021.1896765 (with Julia Smith, Sara E. Davies, Huiyun Feng, Connie C. R. Gan, Karen A. Grépin, Asha Herten-Crabb, Rosemary Morgan, Nimisha Vandan & Clare Wenham). 
7. (2020). ‘COVID-19, the UN, and dispersed global health security’ Ethics and International Affairs, Fall 2020: 373-378.
8. (2020). ‘Securing Reproductive Health: a matter of peace and international security’ International Studies Quarterly 64 (2): 277–284. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaa020 (with Sara E Davies).
9. (2020). ‘They Still Don’t Get It’ International Feminist Journal of Politics 22(2): 275-279, DOI: 10.1080/14616742.2019.1702474.
10. (2019). ‘President Trump as Global Health’s Displacement Activity’ Review of International Studies 45(3): 491-501. (with Sara E Davies)
11. (2018). ‘Making the invisible visible in International Relations: film, co-produced research, and transnational feminism’ European Journal of International Relations 24(4): 791-813  https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117741353.
12. (2018) ‘Governing Ebola: Between Global Health and Medical Humanitarianism’ Globalizations, 15(3): 362-376, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2017.1414410 (with Clare Wenham).
13. (2016). ‘Film as research method in African politics and International Relations: reading and writing film on HIV/AIDS in Tanzania,’ African Affairs, 115 (461): 733–750.
14. (2016). ‘The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Legitimacy in Global Health Governance’ Global Governance, 22 (3): 349-368.
15. (2016). ‘Understanding global health and development partnerships: perspectives from African and global health system professionals’ Social Science and Medicine 159: 22-29, doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.033 (with A. Barnes and G.W. Brown).
16. (2016). ‘Norms won’t save you: Ebola and the norm of global health security’ Global Health Governance X(I)
17. (2016). ‘Ebola, Gender and Conspicuously Invisible Women in Global Health Governance’ Third World Quarterly, 37(3): 524-541
18. (2015). ‘15 years of ‘War on AIDS’: what impact has the global HIV/AIDS response had on the political economy of Africa?’ Review of African Political Economy, 42 (145): 467-476.
19. (2015). ‘Locating Health Diplomacy through African negotiations on Performance Based Funding in Global Health’ Journal of Health Diplomacy 1(3): 1-19. (with A. Barnes and G.W. Brown).
20. (2015). ‘Gender and Infrastructure in the World Bank’ Development Policy Review 33(5): 653-671. (with Lucy Ferguson)
21. (2014). ‘Analysing Leadership in Global Health Governance,’ Global Health Governance 7(1): 1-19. (with Simon Rushton)
22. (2014). ‘Development in Transition’ International Affairs 90 (4): 925-941. (with David Williams)
23. (2013). ‘Beyond TRIPs: Why the WTO’s Doha Round is Unhealthy’ Third World Quarterly 34 (8): 1361-1376. (with James Scott)
24. (2013). ‘In from the margins? The changing place of Africa in International Relations’ International Affairs 89(1): 69-87. (with William Brown)
25. (2011). ‘Governing Health Risk by Buying Behaviour,’ Political Studies 59(4): 867–883. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00920.x
26. (2011). ‘Searching for an Executive Head? Leadership and UNAIDS,’ Global Governance 17(4): 429-446
27. (2011). ‘The Dual Feminisation of HIV/AIDS,’ Globalizations, 8(2): 213-228.
28. (2009). ‘Fighting HIV/AIDS: Reconfiguring the state?’ Review of African Political Economy 36(121): 353-367
29. (2009). ‘Bottlenecks and benevolence: how the World Bank is helping communities to ‘cope’ with HIV/AIDS’ Journal of Health Management 11(2): 279-313.
30. (2009). ‘New Directions in International Relations and Africa’ Roundtable, 98(402): 263-267. (with William Brown, Stephen Hurt, Donna Lee and Karen Smith)
31.  (2007). ‘The World Bank: Failing the Multi-Country AIDS Program (MAP): Failing HIV/AIDS’ Global Governance 13(4): 485-492.

Book Chapters

1. (2023). ‘Global Health’ in J. Baylis, P. Owens, and S. Smith (eds) The Globalization of World Politics: an Introduction – 9^th Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
2. (2023, 2018, 2013). ‘Global Health Governance’ in R. Wilkinson and T. Weiss Global Governance and International Organisation (Abingdon: Routledge).
3. (2022). ‘Who consumes? How the represented respond to popular representations of development’ in D. Lewis, D. Rodgers, and M. Woolcock (eds) New Mediums, Better Messages? How innovations in translation, engagement, and advocacy are changing international development (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
4. (2020). ‘Conclusion: Violence and the Paradox of Global Health’ in T. Vaittinen and C. Confortini (eds) Gender, Global Health, and Violence: Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Disease (London: Rowman & Littlefield).
5. (2014). ‘Innovation and the perils of rebranded privatisation: the case of neoliberal global health,’ in A. Payne and N. Phillips (eds) Handbook of the International Political Economy of Governance (Edward Elgar Publishing)
6. (2014). ‘Critical reflections on global health policy formation,’ in G.W. Brown and G. Yamey (eds) Handbook of Global Health Policy (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell)
7. (2013). ‘International Health Governance’ in David Armstrong (ed). Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press).
8. (2012). ‘Women and the Millennium Development Goals: too little too late too gendered’ in R. Wilkinson and D. Hulme (eds) Beyond the Millennium Development Goals (Abingdon: Routledge)
9. (2009). ‘The World Bank and Global Health’ in O. Williams and A. Kay The Crisis of Global Health Governance: Challenges, Institutions and Political Economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave).
10. (2009). ‘The Causes, Contours and Consequences of Multi-Sectoralism within the HIV/AIDS response’ in S. Harman and F. Lisk (eds), Governance of HIV/AIDS Responses: Making Participation and Accountability Count (Abingdon: Routledge).

Essays and Commentaries

1. (2024). ‘Women’s health is on the ballot in 2024’ Nature Medicine, July 2024.
2. (2022). ‘Empty cradles: medical authority and disappeared children’ The Lancet 400 (10361): 1398-1399.
3. (2022). ‘The wall’ The Lancet 399 (10320): 136-137.
4. (2021). ‘SAGO has a politics problem, and WHO is ignoring it’ BMJ 313: n2786 (with J. Moon and C. Wenham)
5. (2021). ‘Island Earth’ Tortoise
6. (2021). ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ Tortoise
7. (2020). ‘COVID-19 Vaccines and women’s security,’ The Lancet, 397(10727): 357-358. (with A.Herten-Crabb, R. Morgan, J. Smith, and C. Wenham)
8. (2020). ‘The world had the tools to prevent coronavirus, why weren’t they used?’ New Statesman.
9. (2020). ‘The Danger of Stories in Global Health’ The Lancet, 395 (10226): 777.
10. (2020). ‘COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak’ The Lancet, 396 (10227): 846-848. (with C. Wenham, J. Smith, R. Morgan et al)
11. (2020). ‘If we do not address structural racism, then more black minority ethnic lives will be lost’ BMJ Opinion, (with Z. Haque and C.Wenham).
12. (2020). ‘Women are more affected by pandemics – lessons from past outbreaks’ Nature (with C. Wenham et al)
13. (2019). ‘Why it must be a feminist global health agenda’ The Lancet, 393(10171): 601-605. (with S. Davies, R. Manjoo, M. Tanyag and C. Wenham).
14. (2019). ‘Conversations for common humanity: the 2019 Global Health Film Festival’ The Lancet, 394(10214): 2057-2058.
15. (2015). ‘Civil-military co-operation in Ebola and beyond’ The Lancet, 387(10014): 104-105. (with Adam Kamradt-Scott, Clare Wenham, and Frank Smith III).
16. (2015). ‘Big infrastructure: getting gender and the needs of women wrong’ Open Democracy.
17. (2015). ‘Gender-blind global health institutions ignore misery for women in Ebola affected regions’ Open Democracy.
18.  (2014). ‘Ebola virus in the US: how did the disease spread this far?’ The Independent.
19. (2014). ‘Ebola, Polio and HIV: why it’s dangerous to mix healthcare and foreign policy’ The Guardian.

Book Reviews

1. (2023). ‘Divided: racism, medicine, and why we need to decolonise healthcare’ BMJ November, 2023.
2. (2023). ‘The Molecularisation of Security’ International Affairs 99 (2): 897
3. (2022). ‘Rethinking the body in global politics’ International Feminist Journal of Politics, 24(3): 512-514, DOI: 10.1080/14616742.2022.2079542
4. (2021). ‘The Uncounted’ International Affairs, 97 (3): 904–906
5. (2020). ‘Me not you: the trouble with mainstream feminism’ The Sociological Review.
6. (2020). ‘Sensible Politics’ LSE Review of Books.
7. (2019). ‘Polio: the odyssey of eradication,’ International Affairs, 95 (4): 943–944 (with Natasha Ved).
8. (2017). ‘Rebels in a Rotten State’ International Affairs 93 (3): 747-748.
9. (2013). ‘International Security, Conflict and Gender: ‘HIV/AIDS is another war’ International Feminist Journal of Politics, 15(1): 126-129.
10. (2009). ‘AIDS, Illness and African well-being’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 47(1): 159-160
11. (2008). ‘AIDS, South Africa, and the Politics of Knowledge’, Journal of Modern African Studies 46(2): 333-334.

Supervision

I have supervised many PhDs to completion and welcome research supervision in the following areas:

• Global Health Politics
• Africa and International Politics
• Feminist International Political Economy
• Visual Method

Current PhD Student(s):

Nicky Armstrong Visual Communication and the #MeToo Effect.

Public Engagement

Awards

• BAFTA Nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, 2019
• Philip Leverhulme Prize, 2018
• Joni Lovenduski Prize, for outstanding professional achievement by a midcareer scholar (2017/18)
• Hitchcock Public Award for ‘Pili’ Dinard British Film Festival 2017
• Jury Special Mention for Screenplay for ‘Pili’ Dinard British Film Festival 2017
• Public Engagement Involve Award for ‘Pili’, QMUL Enterprise and Engagement Awards 2017

Professional Associations

• Executive Committee member of ISA Global Health Section
• Member Academic Panel ESRC Seminar Series Committee (February 2014 - )
• External Examiner, International Development, Open University (2012 – 2016)
• External Examiner, International Relations, Open University (2014- 2015)
• Trustee and Executive Committee member of the British International Studies Association (BISA) (2010-2012)
• Judge, BISA Nicholson Prize, 2013
• Judge, ISA Global Health Book Prize 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18
• Judge, ISA Global Health Graduate Student Prize 2015, 2016
• Founder and Co-convenor of BISA working group on Global Health (with Stefan Elbe and Adam Kamradt-Scott) (2010 – 2016

Impact and Knowledge Transfer

• Policy Consultant. World Health Organisation, Health Promotion. (2013 - ).
• Policy Consultant. Bureau of Development Policy, HIV/AIDS Group, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2006 - 2007)
• Expert Opinion: The Independent, The Guardian, Voice of America, Associated Press, The Lancet, Open Democracy, The Conversation, New Statesman
• Blogger Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/sophie-harman
• Founding trustee of Trans Tanz (UK Reg. Charity No. 1117510; Tz Reg. Society No. 14756), a charity that provides transportation to healthcare facilities for people living with HIV/AIDS in rural Tanzania. For further information please visit www.transtanz.org

Grants

• Advisor, ‘Multistakeholder Global Governance: Capacity, Effectiveness, Legitimacy,’ Dutch Research Council (NWO), Leiden University, £685,840 (€813,000), January 2025 –
• Advisor, VEM https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/visual-embodied-methodologies-network
• Advisor, ‘The Gender and COVID-19 Project’ Canadian Institutes of Health Research, https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/gendercovid.html, £310,895 (CAN$494, 524) 2020-2022
• Advisor, ‘PANPREP – Public-Private cooperation for pandemic preparedness’ https://www.sum.uio.no/english/research/projects/norways-public-private-cooperation-for-pandemic-p/2020-2023
• PI Philip Leverhulme Prize, 2018, £100,000
• PI Axa Insurance Outlook Award, ‘Expired on the Shelf: Everyday Risk and HIV/AIDS’ - £185,000 (€250,000)
• PI HEFCE Student Opportunity Fund - £24,000 (with Cathy McIlwane, School of Geography, QMUL).
• PI Queen Mary Innovation Fund ‘Expired on the Shelf’ (PI) - £7.500.
• PI Wellcome Trust Small Grant 2012 ‘Leadership in Global Health Governance’ with Simon Rushton, Aberystwyth University, £5000
• CI Equinet Global Health Diplomacy, 2012-2013 (with University of Sheffield, University of Zambia, University of Dar es Salaam), £40,000
• PI ESRC Seminar Series award 2010/2011 African Agency in International Politics (Principal Investigator) with Will Brown, Open University (Co-Investigator), £18,000
• PI ESRC +3 PhD Scholarship (2004 – 2007)