Margaret Scotford Archer FAcSS MAE (20 January 1943 – 21 May 2023) was a British sociologist, who spent most of her academic career at the University of Warwick where she was for many years Professor of Sociology.

On 14 April 2014, Archer was named by Pope Francis to succeed former Harvard law professor and US Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon as President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences,[2] and served in this position until her retirement on 27 March 2019.

[6] On 3 November 2020, she received the international prize entitled in honour of don Oreste Benzi, which has been given in Bologna by hand of the patriarch Francesco Moraglia.

Archer discussed morphogenetic social theory, structure agency and culture, and her later work on the morphogenic society in a useful interview in the Journal of Critical Realism.

[10] In an interview with Bloomberg, Archer discussed the attendance of US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a conference of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences that she had organized.

Archer accused Sanders of a "monumental discourtesy", claiming he sought to politicize his attendance after having lobbied for an invitation to the conference, failing to notify her office.

After repeatedly refusing to tell a Bloomberg reporter which party had initiated contact, Sánchez Sorondo insisted that proper protocol had been followed in issuing the invitation: "This is not true and she knows it.