Dr Rob Calder talks about his new role as CEO

The SSA’s Social Media Specialist, Jess Richmond, interviewed Rob Calder a few months into his new role as Chief Executive Officer. They discussed Rob’s 20-year career in addiction treatment and research, why it’s essential to learn from people with lived experience, and how the SSA’s addiction-specific funding is helping to build the next generation of academic leaders.

What initially drew you to the field of addiction?

I remember from a young age being fascinated by the notion that substances could change someone’s perceptions, behaviours, and personality. This was in the eighties and nineties when there were a lot of warning campaigns about drugs and I was terrified by them. I remember being both intrigued and scared by the idea that drugs could potentially change my own behaviour.

In the early 2000s, I’d been working in mental health treatment services. It was the point at which drug treatment services were expanding rapidly and I bumped into someone in a shop who said that their drug treatment agency was recruiting. I started a new role within the month and as soon as I got into addiction treatment services, I was completely taken with the sector, with the people, and with the work.

That early excitement has stuck with me – the nature of addiction, how using addictive products and how recovery from addiction can change someone, and how you can best help someone who is going through such a personal and profound experience.

Can you tell me a bit about your own research and your specific area of interest?

I came over from treatment services into research and did my master’s and PhD in the 2010s. I think having worked in treatment services and then working in research settings framed the things that I was interested in. I wanted to help the workforce access evidence-based research. If research is not getting into treatment delivery, then only part of the job has been done. I was most interested in how the (sometimes) wonderful invention of the internet might be used to improve that.

I was also involved in vaping research, working on reports funded by Public Health England. Studying vaping and nicotine addiction helped me understand more about other addictive products, such as heroin or stimulants. Seeing the commonality of addiction between two very different types of substances that hold a different place in society improved and developed my thinking on both.

What role can the SSA play in advancing the scientific understanding of addictive products and behaviours?

I think the SSA plays an enormous role. It’s so well-placed because it’s a broad Society that covers all addictive products and behaviours. If you look at the research that goes into the SSA’s journals (Addiction and Addiction Biology), as well as the research that’s presented at our Annual Conference and the blogs on our website, they cover the full spectrum of methods, approaches, questions, treatments, policies, practice, substances, and different types of addiction. The SSA is uniquely placed in bringing people together to understand the bigger picture and this is something it does incredibly well.

We also support people, research, and the implementation of policy. This includes funding PhD students and academic fellows. I make time each year to speak to every single one of them, and they’re inspiring. After each meeting, I think, ‘This person’s going to change the world’. Our addiction-specific funding helps build the next generation of high-profile academic leaders.

What is the most important part of the SSA’s mission and vision to you?

The SSA is developing at the moment; we’ve got new subcommittees, we’ve got new structures, we’ve got a relatively new President, and I’m new in post. To maintain the impact that we have, we have to keep changing. Research is changing rapidly, and so are the substances that people use and the impact those substances have. Staying on top of that, I think, is the real key part of our immediate three-year strategy. It’s what underlines the whole strategy. That ability to be a historic Society that’s 140 years old and that maintains that tradition from those early days of starting with a room full of people who want to make a difference and who want to use research to better understand addiction. The only way we can maintain that spirit is to build change into our everyday business.

How important is including the voices of those with lived experience?

It’s essential, and I’m so glad that this topic is closer to getting the attention that it deserves. There is the principle of ‘Nothing for us, without us’; researchers can have all sorts of great ideas, but if they don’t work with people with lived experience and people who use those treatment services, then treatment for addiction just won’t work. It’s essential that research focuses on and collaborates with the people who need that help every step of the way.

I had an interesting conversation at the Lisbon Addictions conference. I was talking to some of our colleagues in alcohol research and I was asking them about including people with lived experience of addiction through their boards, subcommittees, and structures. They said that it just naturally happens because alcohol is a legal substance. It’s stigmatised, but in very different ways from illicit drugs. Throughout their organisation there are people very comfortable saying that they have lived or living experience of alcohol use. Organisations that deal with illegal substances and more stigmatised behavioural addictions may not have the same openness but that doesn’t mean that representation doesn’t exist. People with a personal understanding of issues are drawn to these charities. I think there’s an important challenge for charities to make sure that that involvement happens, that it is properly supported, and that it’s not tokenistic.

What’s your favourite part of being CEO of the SSA?

It’s the people, it’s always the people. There are so many wonderful people that are involved in the SSA. There’s the immediate SSA team, the journal staff, the editors-in-chief, and the editorial staff. The work of the journals is world-leading and so important. Academic journals hold such a key place in knowledge creation. They’re a real foundation stone; without that level of accuracy, detail, commitment from the journals and their contributors, we’d all be just floundering around.

In every room I go in (or Zoom meeting these days), I have different conversations. I’ll have conversations with the journals about methods or about knowledge creation. I recently talked to some of our researchers, our academic fellows, and our PhD students, and the work that they’re doing is astonishing. They are working across topics including smoking, alcohol, substance use, the impact of trauma, qualitative and quantitative research, treatment and policy, epidemiology – it’s a long list. It’s a real joy to catch up with them and hear about the amazing research that’s going on across the SSA.

At the centre of the SSA is the Board of Trustees, who individually and collectively possess enormous levels of experience, understanding, commitment, and motivation. I would be blown away if I got to talk to them in any setting, but getting to work with them as part of the SSA is a real privilege. In many ways, they continue that tradition of the SSA when it started – as a room full of people who wanted to make a difference, who want to drive things forward and improve treatment, policy, and practice; people who want to better understand addiction and to reduce the impact it has on people’s lives. I’m enjoying every part of being CEO.

Thanks, Rob!