Professor Bruce was the first convenor of the Scottish Heads of Sociology Departments and has served on a number of Economic and Social Research Council committees, including the 1997 working party on the future funding of election studies and the advisory committee for the Scottish Household Panel survey. He is now a member of the Research Assessment Exercise panel for Sociology and an advisor to the Theology and Religious Studies panel of the Quality Assurance Agency.
Professor Bryan MacGregor, Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Law said: "I am delighted that Professor Bruce's work at the University is being acknowledged by such a prestigious award. Professor Bruce has been involved in scholarship of international importance and it is therefore extremely fitting that his work be recognised by The British Academy, the national academy for the humanities and the social sciences."
Since 1991, Steve Bruce has been Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. He was educated at the Queen Victoria School, Dunblane and the University of Stirling (BA 1976; PhD 1980). From 1978 to 1991 he taught at The Queen's University of Belfast. In 1994, he was awarded an Economic and Social Research Council Senior Research Fellowship. He has also held visiting posts at the Universities if Virginia and Edinburgh.