Researching Paul Thompson

Professor Thompson is one of the main theorists of Labour process theory and is Convenor of the Steering Group of the International Labour Process Conference. He is on the editorial board and a former Editor of Renewal, a journal committed to exploring radical social democratic policies in the British Labour Party.

In his academic work Thompson has been critical of traditional managerialist approaches to organisation theory and the post-structuralist approaches of critical management studies.

Paul Thompson was educated at Bryanston School, the University of Bristol (BA) and the University of East Anglia (MA, PhD).

Thompson worked as a scriptwriter and researcher for the Design Council 1987–88. He then joined the Design Museum as Curator of Contemporary Design and in 1993–2001 was its Director.

During 2001–09, Thompson was Director of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, USA. In 2009, he took up his current post at the Royal College of Art. He is a Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and on the Board of Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Wellcome Collection Programme Advisory Committee at the Wellcome Trust, London. He is an Adjunct Professor at Imperial College's Institute for Global Health Innovation. He co-directs the Helix Centre with Professor Lord Ara Darzi. The Helix Centre is a design research centre based in St Mary's Hospital, London.

Thompson later served as director general of the National Theatre School in Montreal, Quebec from 1987 to 1994. He continues to direct theatre productions for Theatre Passe Muraille, Centaur Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, the Blyth Festival, Native Earth Performing Arts and De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre Group.

Thompson was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2008, for his "profound influence on Canadian theatre."

Thompson was granted an honorary doctorate by Algoma University in 2017.

Thompson specializes in the field of human brain imaging, with research interest in mathematical and computational algorithm development for human brain mapping, and has contributed to more than 900 publications. He currently leads the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) project, a global data collection and sharing effort designed to understand how brain structure changes during the trajectory of brain atrophy, mental illness and Alzheimer's and the underlying genetic landscape.