Professor David Best

Dr. Best is the founder and director of STAR Recovery in the UK and research director for the Recovery Outcomes Institute in the US. He is the founder of the Centre for Addiction Recovery Research (CARR) at Leeds Trinity University, Honorary Professor of Regulation and Global Governance at The Australian National University, Adjunct Associate Professor of Addiction Science at Monash University (Melbourne) and Affiliate Senior Scientist at the Public Health Institute in California.

He is also a founding member of the College of Lived Experience Recovery Organisations in the UK and of the Inclusive Recovery Cities movement where he is chair of Inclusive Recovery Cities UK.

Trained as a psychologist and criminologist, he has worked in practice, research and policy in the areas of addiction recovery and rehabilitation of offenders. He has worked and/or studied at the University of Strathclyde (UK), London School of Economics (UK), The Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London (UK), The University of Birmingham (UK) Griffith University (Australia), Monash University (Australia) and The Australian National University (Australia). Additionally he has held policy and research posts at the National Treatment Agency for Substance Use and the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (both in the UK).

 
He has authored or co-edited eight books on addiction recovery and desistance from offending, including the edited book “The Handbook of Recovery Capital” (co-edited with Dr Emily Hennessy), and has written more than 250 peer-reviewed journal publications and around 70 book chapters and technical reports. 

As of December 2024, he has an h-index of 44 and a total of 7005 citations of his academic work. He is one of the leading academics in the area of addiction recovery and a key innovator in developing recovery capital measurement tools and methods.