Dr Paul Hutchings

Profile

I am an Associate Professor in Water, Sanitation and Health and currently serve as one of the Associate Directors of water@leeds which is the university wide network of water researchers. I am a social scientist by training that works at the interface of social science, public health engineering and environmental health, with a focus on water supply and sanitation systems.

My research asks why water supply and sanitation systems operate as they do and what societal pathways can lead to more resilient and equitable water supply and sanitation systems. I am particularly interested in systems undergoing transition or reconfiguration, where services shift from household self-supply or locally managed arrangements toward more integrated, regulated or networked systems capable of delivering higher and more reliable service levels. Much of my work therefore focuses on rapidly changing contexts in low- and middle-income countries, where these transitions are most visible, but I am also starting to explore similar dynamics within the UK water sector as it confronts environmental pressures, ageing infrastructure, and evolving public expectations.

My education include degrees in Geography and Development Studies from the University of Liverpool. I completed a PhD at Cranfield University, where I worked as a research assistant on the Australian Aid (DFAT) funded Community Water Plus project, investigating the determinants of sustainability within community-managed rural water supply projects across India. I worked as Lecturer at Cranfield leading research and teaching on international water supply and sanitation systems between 2016-2020.

I joined the University of Leeds in 2020 and continue to work on a portfolio of projects spanning water, sanitation, infrastructure and health. I am currently involved in major research consortia and initiatives funded by the FCDO, NIHR, and UKRI. I value working closely with practitioners and policy-makers – I currently lead a research and learning programme for FCDO which is providing support to NGOs working on water supply and sanitation system strengthening across six countries in South Asia and Africa.

At Leeds, I am Programme Director for the Water, Sanitation and Health Engineering MSc—an internationally leading and vibrant programme at Leeds—which gives me the privilege of working with talented students from around the world. In recent years, I have been fortunate to supervise a fantastic cohort of PhD students, many of whom are funded by our EPSRC WaterWISER doctoral programme, on topics across my research interests.

Responsibilities

• Programme Leader for the Water, Sanitation and Health Engineering MSc
• WaterWISER CDT Management Board
• Associate Director water@leeds

Research interests

My research draws primarily on social science theory and methods—including institutional analysis, political economy, qualitative fieldwork, mixed-method evaluation, and systems thinking—and integrates them with concepts from public health engineering and environmental sciences. This is usually through direct collaboration with engineers, environmnetal scientists and public health researchers, although I strive to learn and integrate some wider disciplinary expertise within my own work too to delivery inter- and trans-disciplinary research.

Current strands of work include: analysing how governance, finance, and organisational arrangements shape transitions from basic to safely managed water and sanitation services; studying how systems respond to climate shocks and how institutional and infrastructural adaptations can enhance resilience; examining hybrid urban service ecosystems where households, informal providers, and utilities interact in complex ways; and investigating the lived experience and health implications of water and sanitation insecurity.

Collectively, my work aims to centre the role of human agency and experience in delivering more resilient, equitable, and context-appropriate water and sanitation systems.

• RESHAPE: RESilience in HeAlth Post-Extreme weather events
• WASH Systems for Health (2023-2028)

Professional memberships

• International Water Association

Research groups and institutes

• Water, Public Health and Environmental Engineering

Current postgraduate researchers

• Hannah Jayne Robinson
• Georgia Hales
• Ruth Sylvester
• Mahbub Alam