Leadership recognised
Nominee for the Cabinet Secretary’s Outstanding Leader Award in 2023 and 2025.
LEADER. RESEARCHER. SPEAKER.
Rish
McDonald.
Leadership in practice.
Research with depth.
I’m an experienced leader across government and the criminal justice system, and a qualitative researcher in criminology and religious studies. I bring institutional experience into conversation with the lives, beliefs, and communities behind the policy.
Churchill Fellow 2026 / MSt (Cantab) / FCIPD
CriminologyReligion & beliefGovernment & justiceLeadership & inclusion
01 ABOUT ME
An enquiring mind.
A practical perspective.
I’m Risteárd, usually Rish. A leader across government and criminal justice, a qualitative researcher in criminology and religious studies, and a 2026 Churchill Fellow.
My work asks how people experience institutions: how they find belonging, how belief shapes everyday life, and how policy can better reflect the people it affects.
Over nearly a decade in the Civil Service, I have led policy, HR, and strategy teams at the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service, including work with vulnerable groups. My experience also spans service as a magistrate, independent police scrutiny, and charity trusteeship.
My academic work centres on the lived experience of institutions: sacred space, prison chaplaincy, contemporary religion, and belonging. I use qualitative and ethnographic methods to understand what organisational structures can obscure, and what listening closely can reveal.
EDUCATION
Cambridge MSt · LSE MSc
SOAS, University of London MA, BA
FELLOWSHIPChurchill Fellow 2026
LEADERSHIP & SCHOLARSHIP
Cambridge distinction
Highest overall marks in my MSt cohort, a distinction in my thesis, and the King & McDermott Award. My results included the programme’s highest recorded mark for a single essay.
Academic & professional standing
Excellence Award winner at SOAS and LSE. Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD), with a CIPD Level 7 qualification.
02 WORK WITH ME
Good questions.
Useful conversations.
For organisations, audiences, and individuals who want to think carefully and move forward.
01
POLICY INTO PRACTICE
Consultancy
Strategy, policy, and organisational change, grounded in senior government experience and qualitative research. I help organisations review what they do, understand their culture, and develop practical ways forward.
- Organisational & HR strategy
- Policy reviews & development
- Culture, equality, diversity & inclusion
- Qualitative research & evidence reviews
02
IDEAS WORTH DISCUSSING
Speaking
Keynotes, panels, guest lectures, and facilitated conversations. Bringing research and practical experience into discussions about justice, belief, and belonging.
- Conferences & panels
- Guest lectures
- Workshops
03
SPACE TO THINK
Coaching
One-to-one conversations for people navigating leadership, career transitions, and complex professional decisions. A thoughtful space to explore where you want to go next.
- Leadership
- Career transitions
- Professional reflection
03 RESEARCH & PROJECTS
Close to people.
Open to the world.
Qualitative and ethnographic research into belief, belonging, and institutional life.
CHURCHILL FELLOWSHIP · 2026–27CURRENT PROJECTPrison chaplaincy
Prison chaplaincy
across borders.
Exploring Nordic and Japanese approaches to prison chaplaincy and faith and belief services. What can different systems teach us about pastoral care, prison culture, and the possibilities of rehabilitation?
The project brings overseas learning into conversation with practice in England and Wales, with a public report and practical recommendations to follow.
LOOKING AHEAD
Explore the Fellowship project Fieldwork across all five Nordic countries and Japan. Report launch planned for September 2027.
A Place of Greater Safety?
Research at HMP Berwyn and HMP Wormwood Scrubs, examining how time and space become sacred inside prison, and what access to these spaces means in everyday life.
Read the Cambridge dissertationSafety before sacred.
An ethnographic study of ritual and sacred space at the Great Heathen Gathering 2025, exploring the collective work that makes a place feel sacred.
See the forthcoming conference talk04 WRITING & IDEAS
Beyond the
academic page.
Essays, reflections, and questions that follow me out of the research.
Read my Substack01
Starting My Churchill Fellowship Project...
Introducing my comparative study of prison chaplaincy, what I hope to learn from the Nordic countries and Japan, and why pastoral care matters.
Read on Substack02
On Silence
The silences we choose and the silences imposed on us. An essay on institutions, power, attention, and the complicated work of listening.
Read on Substack03
On Sacred Spaces
How places become sacred through attention, ritual, memory, and the ways we behave within them, from prison chapels to everyday thresholds.
Read on Substack05 PUBLICATIONS
Selected work.
FORTHCOMING · JOURNAL ARTICLE
A Place of Greater Safety: Sacred Spaces in English and Welsh Prisons
Prison Service Journal. Forthcoming, October 2026.
FORTHCOMING · ARTICLE
Safety Before Sacred? Exploring Methods of Sacralisation and Ritual Praxis at the Great Heathen Gathering 2025
An ethnographic study of sacred space and ritual praxis. Publication date to be announced.
COMMISSIONED LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review on religion
Research undertaken for the Barrow Cadbury Trust.
BOOK CHAPTER
View bookSelective Frith: Meeting Heathen Worldbuilding in English/Welsh Prisons
In Germanic and Slavic Paganisms: Security Threats and Resiliency. Bloomsbury Academic.
MST DISSERTATION
Read dissertationA Place of Greater Safety(?): An Analysis of Penal Sacred Spaces
University of Cambridge. Ethnographic research at HMP Berwyn and HMP Wormwood Scrubs.
PUBLIC COMMENTARY
Read articleGermanic Contemporary Paganism and radicalisation in English and Welsh prisons: An overlooked security risk
LSE Religion and Global Society, 24 July 2023.
06 TALKS & APPEARANCES
Ideas, in company.
20275–8 JULY
FORTHCOMING · CONFERENCE PAPER
Event details Living Archaeology: Medieval Fragments and the Making of Sacred Space at the Great Heathen Gathering 2025
International Medieval Congress 2027
Panel: Still Trú Today: The Influence of the Middle Ages on 21st-Century Ásatrú Communities
University of Leeds · Congress dates; session time to be announced20266 OCTOBER
UPCOMING · CONFERENCE PAPER
Programme This Land is Our Land (?): An Analysis of Ritual Heathen Praxis at the Great Heathen Gathering 2025
Norwegian and Scandinavian History and Heritage in the British Isles Conference
Cardiff · 11:152026ARCHIVE
AUTHORS’ PANEL
Great Heathen Gathering 2026
A conversation with authors on contemporary Heathenry.
Out to Grass · Malvern Hills202525 SEPTEMBER
CONFERENCE PAPER
Programme Dialoguing with Pagan Extremists in Sacred Spaces within England and Wales Prisons
7th Nordic Conference on Violent Extremism · Conference held 25–26 September 2025
Aarhus University, Denmark · 16:30–17:45 session201923 OCTOBER
PANEL DISCUSSION
Event details Gender mainstreaming
LSE Gender Alumni Lunch
London School of Economics and Political ScienceTalksSELECTED
GOVERNMENT LEARNING · TALKS
Gender mainstreaming in government
Talks for Canadian Government audiences through Apolitical.
International public service learning07 GET IN TOUCH
Something
on your mind?
A project, a speaking invitation, a coaching conversation, or a question about my research. I’d like to hear from you.
richardpaulmcdonald@icloud.comAn independent personal website. Organisational references describe experience and affiliations, rather than endorsement.