Georgina Sturge

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Georgina Sturge (born 1988 or 1989 [1] [2] ) is a British quantitative researcher and author. She is a data consultant at the Migration Observatory, in University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). She previously worked as a statistical researcher at the library of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. She is the author of two general audience books on the collection and use of data in government decision making.

Contents

Sturge earned her bachelors degree in English language and literature at Balliol College, Oxford (2011) and earned her MSc in public policy and human development from Maastricht University (2013). [1] [3] [4]

After completing her MSc, Sturge worked as a researcher at the Overseas Development Institute, a global affairs think tank. [3]

In 2018, Sturge joined the library in the UK House of Commons, where she was a statistical researcher, writing research briefing papers on migration and justice statistics to support members of parliament and their staff. [5] She leveraged her experience in the House of Commons to write her first book, Bad Data: How Governments, Politicians, and the Rest of Us Get Misled by Numbers, [6] which describes how politicians use national statistics to inform policy decisions and how often those statistics can be either inconsistent, vague or misleading, or even wrong. [1] [7] Bad Data was generally well received by reviewers, [1] [2] [5] [7] [8] [9] although Snowdon suggested more details about some of the data discussed in the book would have been useful, [7] and Guest was frustrated by the lack of solutions proposed. [5]

In 2025, Sturge became a researcher at the Migration Observatory, in the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). She returned to the Netherlands to live and to work part-time at the Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE). [4] [10] [11]

Her second book, Sum of Us: A History of the UK in Data, [12] describes the collection of official national statistics since the Norman invasion to the present. [11]

Personal life

Sturge met her wife while studying at Maastricht University. They were married in 2022. [1]

Selected publications

Books

  • Sturge, Georgina (2022a). Bad Data: How Governments, Politicians, and the Rest of Us Get Misled by Numbers. London: The Bridge Street Press. ISBN   978-0-349-12861-0.
  • Sturge, Georgina (2025). Sum of Us: A History of the UK in Data. Little, Brown Book Group Limited. ISBN   978-0-349-12902-0.

Refereed journal articles

  • Bastagli, Francesca; Hagen-Zanker, Jessica; Harman, Luke; Barca, Valentina; Sturge, Georgina; Schmidt, Tanja (2019). "The Impact of Cash Transfers: A Review of the Evidence from Low- and Middle-income Countries". Journal of Social Policy. 48 (3): 569–594. doi:10.1017/S0047279418000715.
  • Sturge, Georgina; Bilgili, Özge; Siegel, Melissa (2016). "Migrants' capacity as actors of development: Do skills matter for economic and social remittances?". Global Networks. 16 (4): 470–489. doi:10.1111/glob.12117.

Newspaper articles

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Cunliffe, Rachel (23 November 2022). "Georgina Sturge: "The numbers don't count. People do"". New Statesman.
  2. 1 2 Wallop, Harry (23 October 2022). "I'm a data expert in parliament — you won't believe what MPs ask me". The Times.
  3. 1 2 Raith, Florian (9 January 2024). "Careful with numbers and stories". Maastricht University.
  4. 1 2 "Georgina Sturge – new (and former) researcher joins UNU-MERIT". Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE). 28 September 2025.
  5. 1 2 3 Guest, Katy (14 December 2022). "Bad Data by Georgina Sturge review – figures of derision". The Guardian.
  6. ↑ Sturge 2022a.
  7. 1 2 3 Snowdon, Christopher J. (8 December 2022). "How Do They Know This?". Quillette.
  8. ↑ Lanchester, John (21 September 2023). "Get a rabbit". London Review of Books.
  9. ↑ Cox, Laurence (27 March 2024). "Book Review: Bad Data by Georgina Sturge". Liberal Democrat Voice.
  10. ↑ "Georgina Sturge". COMPAS.
  11. 1 2 Britten, Anna (27 May 2025). "Once upon a time in British data: interview with Georgina Sturge". Significance. 22 (4). Oxford University Press (OUP): 20–24. doi:10.1093/jrssig/qmaf039. ISSN   1740-9705.
  12. ↑ Sturge 2025.
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