Crowds & Identities

John Drury is professor of social psychology at the University of Sussex. He has been researching crowd behaviour for over 35 years, including collective behaviour in emergencies, live music events, and crowd conflict.

He has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on collective behaviour, emergencies, and related topics.

His research has informed the UK Civil Contingencies Secretariat’s National Risk Assessments, UK government guidance on communication in crises, UK Fire and Rescue Service training, and the training given to crowd safety managers and stewards around the world. As part of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, he participated in the UK government SAGE behavioural science subgroup SPI-B. He currently sits on the Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Expert Group.

John runs training programmes on the crowd psychology of crowd safety management and provides consultancy to organisations on the planning and review of crowd events.