Established in late 2018, MurrayBlackburnMackenzie is a policy analysis collective, made up of Dr Kath Murray, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Lisa Mackenzie. Between us, we have extensive experience in policy-making, research and communications. Over the past year, we have researched and written about sex and gender self-identification across different areas of public policy in the UK.

We are Edinburgh based, and work in both a voluntary and commissioned capacity.

Our background

Dr Kath Murray is a research fellow in Criminology at the University of Edinburgh. She completed her PhD in 2014, looking at the disproportionate use of stop and search on young, working class men in Scotland. Her research in this area led to major legal and policy reform, for which she received an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Outstanding Impact prize.

Lucy Hunter Blackburn is a former senior civil servant (Head of Higher Education Division, Head of Reducing Reoffending Division and Director of Policy at Historic Scotland). Lucy is coming to the end  of researching for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh looking at student finance.

Lisa Mackenzie is a former communications specialist in the UK Government and has worked in a number of Whitehall departments, including the Department for Social Security and Home Office, as well as the Commission for Racial Equality.

“If policy is to be based on evidence, then the evidence has to be as independent of ideological points of view as is possible. MBM Scottish policy analysis has an admirable record of trying to achieve that.”

Lindsay Paterson, Professor of Education Policy, University of Edinburgh