Dr Richard Gunton

Profile

Dr Richard Gunton PhD (Leeds) MA (Cantab) is a Senior Lecturer in Data Science.

He held postdoctoral positions in ecology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (France).  He has also worked in Australia, with a stint at Charles Darwin University and participation in a project of the Australian Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Back in the UK, a fellowship with the Centre for Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (www.cecan.ac.uk) led him into environmental ethics and policy evaluation.  He then worked in financial modelling at Sciteb Ltd, a management consultancy in London, and most recently as a Senior Lecturer in Statistics at the University of Winchester. 

Teaching

DAT6501: AI and Statistical Data Analysis

IOT592W: Solutions Development and Quality

IOT646W: Software Development and Quality

SPC720P: Dissertation supervision: Research Project in Data Science (MSc)

Research

Research Interests:

Richard's research interests range from philosophy of science through to environmental ethics and policy evaluation. His early research in ecology, including vegetation science and community ecology, led into conservation planning and ecological value theory. His policy evaluation tool, the Pluralistic Evaluation Framework (https://www.pluralisticevaluation.org/), has enjoyed interest from a number of public and private organisations. Richard’s current work includes developing this tool for use in business and other areas of policy-making, clarifying the nature of environmental goods, values and obligations, and understanding the uses of artificial intelligence in scientific research.

Publications

Beale NCL, Gunton RM, Bashe KL, Battey HS, MacKay RS. (2025) Dynamics of value-tracking in financial markets. J. Dynamics & Games. doi:10.3934/jdg.2024003.  

Gunton RM, van der Stoep J, Araya YN, Jochemsen H (2024) Sustainability beyond the triple bottom line: evaluating transformative change in food systems. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 8:1483942.

Gunton RM (2023) What is enlightened agriculture? A multi-normative approach to the nature and values of food production. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 7:979818

Gunton RM, Basden A, Hejnowicz AP, van Asperen E, Christie I, Hanson DR, Hartley SE (2022) Valuing beyond economics: a pluralistic evaluation framework for participatory policy-making. Ecological Economics 196:107420

Gunton RM, Stafleu MD, Reiss MJ (2021) A general theory of objectivity: contributions from the Reformational philosophy tradition. Foundations of Science 27:941-955