Sabu Padmadas

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

Profile

Professor Sabu Padmadas is a world-leading demographer, a global health expert, a social scientist, a thought leader, and an award winning academic, with over 28 years of international experience in impact evaluation, census, population surveys, social statistics, global public health, and epidemiology.
Padmadas is currently a Professor of Demography and Global Health at the University of Southampton, a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, and an honorary Senior Fellow at the China Population and Development Research Centre, a think-tank affiliated to the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China. He is founding Executive Director of the University India Centre for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development, and co-founding Director of the Centre for Global Health, Population, Poverty and Policy at Southampton.
Padmadas is internationally renowned for his professional competency and skillset in strategy and innovations in research communication and impact acceleration. He was the Associate Dean International for two terms (2018-23) at the inaugural Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Southampton. He has strong global networks with leading higher education institutions, government ministries, industries and NGOs including the United Nations. He is passionate about transformative interdisciplinary research and evidence-based interventions that make a real difference to the planet and people.
His research interests cover broader interdisciplinary fields addressing global population dynamics, global health and sustainability challenges in low-middle income and transition economies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and high-income countries in Europe and Gulf Cooperation Council region. Padmadas obtained his PhD in Demography from the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, where he also completed a two-year term as a Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow and a Fellow of Systems, Management and Organisation.
A significant achievement of Padmadas’ academic career is the research spanning over a decade (2003-15) evaluating three cycles of a large-scale United Nations Reproductive Health and Family Planning country programme in China, which generated high impact and policy response at the national level, replacing the historical one-child policy. Padmadas was the scientific lead to this high-profile collaborative programme led by the then National Population and Family Planning Commission and the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China and the United Nations Population Fund.
Padmadas was the scientific lead to the Norway-India Partnership Health Innovations Programme under the National Health Mission of India of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. He was the Scientific Advisor to China-Africa Population Development South-South Cooperation initiative led by the United Nations and the National Health Commission in China, and Technical Advisor to the National Institute of Statistics Research, Government of Rwanda on the evaluation of post-genocide Population and Housing Census.
He was also the Scientific lead to designing the Social Observatory Research Programme in the Sultanate of Oman, a national strategic programme coordinated by The Research Council with the Ministry of Social Development and 5 government ministries, National Centre for Statistics and Information and the Royal Oman Police. He was instrumental in overseeing research as part of the National Road Safety Research Programme in Oman, for which he and his team received the 2022 National Research Award.
Padmadas has an excellent record of accomplishment of leading and c0-leading over 30 successful research grants funded by the UK and International Research Councils, British Academy, UK Department for International Development, UK Royal Society, International Development Research Centre (Canada), and the World Health Organisation. He has supervised 24 doctoral research students to successful completion, published over 100 research articles in international peer-reviewed journals and 17 official reports for national and international organisations including the United Nations, World Health Organisation, and government statistical and research agencies.
Padmadas was featured in BBC Two Horizon documentary ‘7.7 Billion People and Counting’, and interviewed by several national and international media including: New York Times, BBC World Services, BBC South Solent, Reuters, Associated Press, Times of India, The Hindu, India Today, Oman Observer and Times Higher Education. He holds an excellent record of delivering inspirational keynotes and distinguished lectures at universities across the world, and national and international panels/conclaves such as the World Universities Summit, QS, Association of Commonwealth Universities, Worldwide Universities Network, Horasis, United Nations, WHO, Davos Worldwide, Global Leadership Conferences, and governmental agencies including the UK Office for National Statistics and Department of International Development.
Through interdisciplinary research-informed teaching, Padmadas is dedicated to transforming scientific knowledge and training the next generation researchers to solve critical global health issues and sustainable development challenges. He has coordinated over 30 international workshops worldwide, including programme impact evaluation, sustainable development, leadership, strategy development, and human development and interpersonal skills.
Padmadas was awarded the 2010 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for excellence in high quality teaching and curriculum development, and the Southampton Students Union Teaching Awards for innovative teaching and best lecturer consistently for several years. He received the 2021 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for International Engagement for his contributions to internationalisation at the university, the 2023 Global Academic Excellence Award from Amity University, India and the 2023 International Achievers Award at the Eurasian Business Summit held in the UK House of Commons.