Professor Ralph Tench

Professor Tench is the Director of Research for Leeds Business School and the elected President and Head of the Board of Directors for the European Public Relations Research and Education Association (EUPRERA). EUPRERA is the leading academic association for public relations and strategic communication.

Professor Tench's research focuses on two communications strands, firstly for social impact and secondly in organisational strategy, behaviour and performance. His work involves national and international funded projects including working with large organisations and business, such as the annual European Communication Monitor, now in its twelfth year (www.communicationmonitor.eu), business leaders, professions or small to medium sized enterprises. For example he led a €600K EU project on climate change using deliberative engagement. He has been appointed twice in 2017 as a special advisor to the European Commission and is currently running a consultancy project for the Commission on branding for employment services. He has been the principle investigator for several large research projects including the first and largest to be funded in public relations when he ran the ECOPSI communication competency project. He also supported another European funded SME e-learning project (SME-ELEARN). Professor Tench has also led and been part of health and obesity communication projects with the NHS and Public Health England. Professor Tench has written over 30 academic peer reviewed journal articles; published 26 books (Pearson, Emerald, Palgrave Macmillan and Peter Lang publishers), not including translations and smaller research book publications; published over 15 full research reports/books related to major research projects; written and published 15 practitioner/professional publication thought pieces/articles; presented worldwide more than 60 peer reviewed papers.

Most recently he has published the critically acclaimed Communication Excellence: How to Develop, Manage and Lead Exceptional Communication (2017) with his colleagues from the European Communication Monitor. He also celebrated in 2017 the publication of the 4th Edition of Exploring Public Relations, the market-leading textbook for the public relations subject internationally.

Professor Tench teaches across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. He has extensive doctoral supervision with six of his PhD students successfully passing their vivas in 2017. His research supervision currently involves seven students studying corporate social responsibility, corporate image and identity, obesity communication and strategic communication in health. Professor Tench is a past Visiting Professor at the University of Salzburg and has taught, supervised and examined PhDs worldwide.