Ken Young

Kenneth George Young FAcSS FRHistS (3 January 1943 – 20 February 2019)^[1][2][3] was a British political scientist and historian who was Professor of Public Policy at King's College London in its Department of War Studies.^[4] Earlier he was instrumental in the creation of the Department of Political Economy at KCL in 2010, and was its founding head of department.^[2]

Educated at the London School of Economics, Young was a research officer with the influential Greater London Group during his time there. Young taught at several institutions prior to coming to KCL, including the University of Kent at Canterbury; the University of Bristol, where he was a founding editor of the interdisciplinary-oriented journal Policy & Politics and where the annual Ken Young Best Paper Prize is named after him; the University of Birmingham, where he was director of the Institute of Local Government Studies; and at Queen Mary and Westfield College of the University of London, where he was head of the Department of Politics and Vice-Principal. Young is most known for his work in urban studies and policy studies, specially with regard to local government in England. He was also involved in the evidence-based policy movement, including serving as director of the Economic and Social Research Council's UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice and co-founding the journal Evidence & Policy.

He served on several governmental bodies, in particular being director of research for the Widdicombe Committee during 1985–86. Late in his career, he shifted his focus towards security studies and became a historian of the early Cold War. One of his journal articles in that field was awarded a Moncado Prize by the Society for Military History.