About
Phil is a psychology research associate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Liverpool. He has previously worked for Cardiff University as a research associate and lecturer and was a firefighter for over 30 years. He has specialist knowledge in relation to human factors. Specifically, with respect to the non-technical skills associated with emergency service incident command including stress management, naturalistic decision making, and the design and evaluation of behavioural marker systems. In particular he developed the THINCS behavioural marker system for the UK fire and rescue service (FRS).
Currently, Phil is part of a small, collaborative research group with academics from Lancaster University working on a project to enhance interoperability between the UK’s emergency response organisations. The project is funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) and aims to design and evaluate new training on the psychological skills of interoperability, i.e., trust, identity and goals. Phil designed and conducted online and in-person focus groups with UK emergency responders to capture their understanding of the psychological skills and how they may be trained. Presently, he is conducting a thematic analysis of the focus group transcripts prior to developing a training toolkit for evaluation.
Phil is also collaborating on two other projects. One that is funded by the centre for Natural Hazards Research Australia with colleagues from Central Queensland University and Robert Gordon University. This project aims to enhance the decision making of emergency responders in Australia by designing better decision making training. The second is with colleagues from Cardiff University and Anglia Ruskin University on a project that is investigating the impact of stress and cognitive load on fire service incident commanders and the non-technical skills of fire control room commanders.
Phil has twice served as a member of the UK FRSs incident command guidance review project board that periodically reviews and revises national guidance under the auspices of the National Fire Chiefs Council. Currently, he is a member of the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP) Research Working Group whose vision is to identify research needs, fill knowledge gaps, and strengthen JESIP’s doctrine, training, and operations through evidence-led collaboration.
Finally, and perhaps not surprisingly, he is a member of the Critical Incident Risk and Decision Making group at the University of Liverpool