Dr Nick Drydakis is a Professor in Economics at the School of Economics, Finance and Law of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU, UK), teaching Microeconomics and Macroeconomics and researching labour and population economics.

Nick is Course Convenor and a Lecturer for the courses (i) The Economics of Inequality, Discrimination, Poverty and Exploitation, and (ii) The Economics of Growth and Development. These are held at the International Programmes Department of the University of Cambridge, Pembroke College (UK).

Nick has developed and offered credit eligible courses which have been delivered to Economics students from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and Yale University.

Nick is the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Economic Exploitation and Inequality (JOEEI), published by Emerald in 2025

Nick is a Tripos Supervisor and an Academic Associate at Pembroke College (University of Cambridge).He supervises the following papers:
Part IIA Paper 2: Macroeconomics
Part IIA Paper 8: History and Philosophy of Economics
Part IIB Paper 8: The Economics of Developing Countries
Part I Paper 4: Political and Social Aspects of Economics

Nick collaborates with the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge as an Academic Expert on labour economics, where he provides expert knowledge to Directors from Whitehall, local government and the European Commission.

In addition, Nick has collaborated with the OECD (International Migration Division) as an Expert on labour economics. He is an ad-hoc Expert to the European Commission via the European Centre of Expertise in the Field of Labour Law, Employment and Labour market Policies.

He also serves as an ad-hoc Expert to the International Labour Organization (United Nations).

Also, Nick is a Spokesperson and Subject Editor at the IZA World of Labour for a series of areas such as discrimination, inequality, poverty, exploitation, bullying, disability, health, economic crisis, depression, job satisfaction, sexual orientation, transgenderism, universities quality, and ethnic identity.

Nick is the founding Director of the Centre for Inclusive Societies and Economies (CISE), formerly known as the Centre for Pluralist Economics (CPE), at ARU. The CISE aims to influence economic decision-making by examining a wide range of decisions, alternatives, and their implications. A particular feature of the CISE is its orientation toward a pluralistic approach, enhancing the understanding of ethical, political, social, and trust issues for formulating economic policy.

The CISE focuses on the economics of competition, discrimination, education, ethics, exploitation, growth, housing markets, innovation, institutional and organizational change, the Internet, AI, law, networks, moral and political philosophy, pluralism, production, and sustainability. ARU and University of Cambridge students are involved in the CISE scholars’ primary research, data collection, software, multivariate analysis, and learning under the supervision of the CPE scholars.

Nick was the founding Director of the Scientific Centre for the Study of Discrimination (SCSD, Athens). Between 2007 and 2017, SCSD developed and implemented a number of questionnaire-based data sets and performed social science research regarding labour and population economics.

The main aim of the SCSD was to evaluate the causes of social inequalities in the European labour market and the possibility that society might remove such inequalities, while exploring the interplay between human capital, health, mental health and social options for action. Undergraduate, postgraduate and research students in the UK, Greece and Cyprus had the opportunity to become involved in Nick’s primary research, data collection, software and multivariate analysis and to learn under Nick’s supervision.

Before joining ARU as a Senior Lecturer in Economics, Nick was a Lecturer in Labour Economics at the University of Patras. Before he joined University of Patras he held Lectureships (Adjunct) at the University of Piraeus, Athens University of Economics and Business, the Panteion University of Social and Political Science, the University of Central Greece, the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, and the University of Patras. Nick has worked as a researcher at the Hellenic Ministry of Defense (Department of Training), and at the University of Crete (BENETec Laboratory).

He received his BSc in Economics from the University of Crete. He received his MSc in Economics from Athens University of Economics and Business. He completed his PhD in Labour Economics at the University of Crete. He completed his PG Cert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (at ARU). He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK), and a Fellow and Cluster Leader of the GLO.

Nick has published articles in widely renowned journals, including: Oxford Economic Papers, Economics Letters, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Labour Economics, Journal of Economics, Journal of Population Economics, Review of Economics of the Household, Applied Economics, Feminist Economics, Applied Economics Letters, European Journal of Health Economics, Urban Studies, Journal of Industrial Relations, Manchester School, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, International Journal of Manpower, Human Relations, Economics of Education Review.

Nick’s contribution in the 2014 REF was excellent. He contributed to the 2021 REF exercise with four single-author papers, internationally rated as world-leading at the 4 ABS level (4444). Moreover, Nick owns a 2021 REF Impact Case Study rated as world-leading.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in May 2011.