Irvine Lapsley is a member of CNPR (the Centre for Not for Profit and Public-Sector Research) at the Management School, Queen`s University, Belfast. He is an Honorary Professor at Queen`s University Belfast and a Visiting Professor at NTNU University, Trondheim. He has been a Visiting Professor at Lund University, Politecnico di Milano, Mannheim University, the University of Zaragoza and Sydney University.
He has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Accounting and Finance Association (2014). He holds an Honorary Doctorate in Economics from the University of Lund, Sweden, May 2018. He has been an advisor to the Finance and Health Committees in the Scottish Parliament.
He is Joint Editor of Financial Accountability & Management (Wiley), a journal devoted to accountability and financial management in public sector and nonprofit organizations. He is a Faculty Member of EIASM(Brussels). He is Chair of the Scientific Committee of the EIASM Public Sector Conference and a co-chair of the EIASM research workshop on the Third Sector. He has co-chaired 25 editions of the New Public Sector Seminar, which has been supported by BAA, CIMA and ESRC.
His research interests include: Public sector reforms: particularly the Audit Society, the role of accounting and transparency in New Public Management, Performance Management in public services and the impact of austerity on government activities. This includes research on charities, government (local and central) and the NHS. He has held research grants from the EU, ESRC, Leverhulme, Nuffield, CIMA, CIPFA and ICAS.
He has published widely on public sector financial management issues with over 100 academic articles and 19 books and monographs. His most recent publications are : Bruno, A & Lapsley, IM 2018, 'The emergence of an accounting practice: The fabrication of a government accrual accounting system' Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal; Christine Cooper and Irvine Lapsley, Hillsborough: The Fight for Accountability, Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2019) Critical Perspectives on Accounting; Juan Du and Irvine Lapsley(2019) The Reform of UK Universities: A Management Dream, An Academic Nightmare? Abacus; Alex Ala and Irvine Lapsley (2019) Accounting for Crime in the Neoliberal World, British Accounting Review; Irvine Lapsley and Peter Miller, (2019) Transforming the Public Sector 1998-2018 , Auditing Accounting and Accountability Journal; Irvine Lapsley and Federica Segato (2019) Citizens, Technology and the NPM Movement, Public Money and Management ;Kari Nyland, Per Christian Ahlgren and Irvine Lapsley (2020) NPM Resistance: A Political Intervention, Financial Accountability & Management.