He was previously Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was Head of the Department of Sociology, Pro-Warden for Research and Head of the Goldsmiths Centre for Urban and Community Research and Director of a major evaluation of urban regeneration in South East London.

Originally trained as a biologist, Nikolas Rose has done extensive research on the history and sociology of psychiatry, on mental health policy and risk, and on the social implications of recent developments in psychopharmacology.

He has also published widely on the genealogy of subjectivity, on the history of empirical thought in sociology, and on changing rationalities of political power.

He is particularly known for his development of the work of the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault for the analysis of the politics of our present, and stimulating the revival of studies of governmentality in the Anglo-American world.

These three books are widely recognised as founding texts in a new way of understanding and analysing the links between expertise, subjectivity and political power.

Rose argues that the proliferation of the 'psy' disciplines has been intrinsically linked with transformations in governmentality, in the rationalities and technologies of political power in 'advanced and liberal democracies'.

His book The Urban Brain: Mental Health in the Vital City, written with Des Fitzgerald, was published by Princeton University Press in 2022.

[10] His work has been translated into many languages including Swedish, Danish, Finnish, German, Italian, French, Hungarian, Korean, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Romanian, Portuguese and Spanish.