About Us
The mission of the John Smith Centre is to promote trust in politics and public service. We do this in three key ways: Research, advocacy and events, and development programmes.
SUPPORT US Skip to content Skip to main menu 
Our Mission
Promoting trust in politics and public service
We exist to:
- Make the positive case for politics and public service.
- Promote civilised debate and defend representative democracy, rooted in high quality research.
- Support people with talent, but not the means, to access politics and public life.
Why?
Politics has become a discredited and disrespected process. This acts as a huge disincentive to talented people choosing to enter politics. People passionate to effect change will go elsewhere, and we will all suffer as a result.
We need to act now: it is critical to the social and economic wellbeing of our country that the most able and willing to serve to represent us.
University of Glasgow
The John Smith Centre is housed within the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
Founded in 1451, the University of Glasgow is the fourth oldest university in the English-speaking world. It welcomes students from more than 140 countries worldwide and has around 29,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
In addition to leading the Centre’s work, our Director Kezia Dugdale also teaches Social and Public Policy at the University. Together with the Dean of External Engagement Graeme Roy she presents a fortnightly Podcast called Spotlight and assists with the University’s wider public engagement work.