Martin's previous academic appointments include: an ESRC Research Fellow at Aston Business School; Lecturer in Public Sector Management at Aston University; and University Research Fellow and Reader in Public Policy Evaluation at the University of Warwick. At Warwick, he led the Local Authority Research Consortium, through which researchers co-produced with politicians and local authority officers a series of policy relevant studies on managing organisational and external change. In 1997 he led a research team that was commissioned by the UK government to study its flagship Best Value pilot programme designed to improve the cost effectiveness and quality of local government services in England. Martin was appointed as a Professor at Cardiff Business School in 2000 where he established the Centre for Local & Regional Government Research, which he led until 2013. The Centre has attracted more than £10 million in external research funding. It is recognised as one of the leading public management research groups in the world, rated third overall in an independent study conducted by academics at Erasmus University and ranked fourth in the 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities. Martin and his colleagues at Cardiff completed major studies on public service improvement with a particular focus on Best Value inspection, Comprehensive Performance Assessment and Corporate Peer Challenge. He has also evaluated external interventions in failing councils in England and Wales. In 2013 Martin was asked by the First Minister of Wales to establish and lead the Public Policy Institute for Wales, which was succeeded in 2017 by the Wales Centre for Public Policy. The Centre is one of the UK’s What Works Centres. It collaborates with leading researchers to provide ministers, officials and public service leaders with authoritative independent evidence and expertise and is researching the role which evidence plays in the policy process. In 2018 the Centre won the 20th Anniversary Cardiff University Award for Impact on Policy.
Government adviser
Martin has given evidence to numerous Parliamentary select committees and inquiries and served on a range of advisory bodies. He is a past Treasurer of the UK Evaluation Society, was a non-executive director of the Local Government Improvement and Development Agency from 2003–2010 and of the New Local Government Network from 2007–2016. In 2009 he was appointed as the lead member of the UK Government’s Expert Panel on Local Governance. He was a member of independent panel on Assembly Members’ remuneration in 2007–2008, and in 2005–2006 he served as the Academic Adviser to the Independent Review of Local Public Services chaired by Sir Jeremy Beecham.
