Career

Prior to joining Bath, Marcus was Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research Culture at the University of Bristol, which he joined as a lecturer in 2005. He has also had roles outside of academia, including as a rowing coach (for Oxford University Women’s Boat Club and the Great Britain Under-23 team), and as an officer in the Army Reserve.

While at the University of Bristol, Marcus was co-director of the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, and Medical Research Council (MRC) Investigator within the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit. His research focused on the relationship between health behaviours, such as tobacco and alcohol use, and both physical and mental health outcomes. He has worked closely with policymakers, and his work has influenced policy at a national and supra-national level.

He also has a long-standing interest in the factors that influence research quality, and the implementation of approaches to improve research quality at multiple levels of the research system. This led to him co-founding the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) in 2019. He leads a major project funded by Research England to accelerate the uptake of open research practices across the UK higher education sector.

Education

Marcus completed his undergraduate degree in psychology and philosophy at the University of Oxford, followed by a MSc and PhD in health psychology at the University of Southampton.