Dr Sam Royston
Executive Director of Policy and Research - Marie Curie
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Biography
Sam is the executive director of policy and research at Marie Curie.
He joined in November 2020 and was appointed executive director of policy and research in April 2023.
In that time, Marie Curie has successfully campaigned for an explicit legal requirement for palliative care services to be commissioned across England, and initiated the UK Commission on Bereavement, an independent commission examining the changes to policy and practice needed to better support bereaved people.
Following ground-breaking research identifying the number of people who die in poverty each year, the charity launched its Dying in Poverty campaign, calling for key changes to ensure no one faces poverty at the end of life.
Sam was previously policy director at The Children’s Society and is a former chair of the End Child Poverty coalition.
He completed his PhD in the social policy department at the University of York, and was an adviser at a Citizens Advice Bureau.
He is the author of Broken Benefits: What’s gone wrong with welfare reform, and in 2026 joined the trustee board for the anti-poverty charity Turn2us.
Declaration of any potential conflicts of interest
N/A