Biography
Professor Denise Hewlett is Head of the Health Business School at Health Sciences University. She is a member of the British Academy of Management (BAM), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (FRSPH), an Academic Member of the Landscape Institute (AMLI), Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (FRGS), and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Additionally, she has been a member of the Specialist International Taskforce on OneHealth agenda for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for which she has also been Co-Chair of their Specialist Health and Wellbeing Group, working on healthcare management and public health concerns with international bodies including the World Health Organisation.
Denise has extensive academic experience, having worked for nearly 25 years in Business Schools in the UK and across the EU. She has been founder and director of two key international Research Centres, specialising in innovative, multidisciplinary applied research in the fields of health and wellbeing, healthcare management, policy formulation, integrated care systems, especially engaging with planning policy and development in urban and rural contexts.
Her most recent applied research activities, include: the application of social, microbiome and environmental sciences to investigate how public access to a range of natural environment impacts public health and wellbeing; exploring quality of death and impact of natural environments on palliative contexts; determining the effect of accessing nature, and spatial settings on workforce wellbeing: and developing collaborative partnerships, including with communities, for developing place-based policy making.
She has taught across several disciplines and specialises in research methods, project management, has expertise in Business Ethics, Sustainable Development and in co-creating governance and ESG principles.
Denise is passionate about student centred learning, about providing experiential learning opportunities, about developing strong networks that support successful careers, through the co-creation of collaborative partnerships and is totally committed to working with professional organisations in providing for programmes that meet employers’ requirements.
She has successfully supervised to completion PhD and DBA research students and published widely in the fields of biopsychosocial and environmental wider determinants of health, and integrated practices for enhancing public health.
Prior to her academic career, Denise worked at Executive level for blue chip, private sector, international organisations. As her academic career has developed so too has she extended her portfolio of practice to include working in the public sector for national and regional governing organisations including with public health teams and those of the Department of Health and Social Care. Denise has also worked extensively with charitable organisations and social enterprises.
Areas Of Expertise
Denise specialises in bringing people together, in creating partnerships and collaborative models of working across sectors and disciplines, enhanced through her expertise in networking. She has extensive experience of leading international and national programmes of research on sustainable development, on Onehealth agendas, health, wellbeing and access to blue and greenspaces and is especially interested in business’ engagement in environmental, social and governance principles (ESG) and in pedagogy for management, leadership and executive training programmes.
Current Activity
As Head of School, Denise is responsible for the development and progression of postgraduate degree programmes, MBA and MSc in Global Health Care Management and MBA and MSc in Health Care Management and of our portfolio of CPD and short training business courses which will be launched later in the academic year.
Denise oversees our consultancy activities in the Health Business School, and the focus of research undertaken. She is an active researcher, having advised and published widely on health, wellbeing, the wider determinants of health and is especially interested in promoting positive behaviours to enhancing people’s health and wellbeing. Denise is also an active partner in several programmes engaged with local communities and regional public organisations. These are focused on access to natural environments, health inequalities, encouraging positive health and wellbeing behaviours, and encouraging the use of nature-based interventions in improving quality of life, health and wellbeing especially of older adults and those classed as chronically ill.
