John Osmond has focused much of the IWA's work around the wide-ranging domestic agenda within the remit of the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government. He is the author of numerous books on Welsh politics and culture, including Creative Conflict: the politics of Welsh devolution (1977), The Divided Kingdom (1988), Welsh Europeans (1995), Birth of Welsh Democracy (Ed.) (2003), and Crossing the Rubicon: Coalition Politics Welsh Style (2008). A former journalist and television producer, he is a Fellow of the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, and has been awarded an Honorary MA by the University of Wales.

Born and brought up in Abergavenny near the Welsh border, John graduated from the University of Bristol and began his career in journalism with Yorkshire Post newspapers in the late 1960s. In the 1970s he became Welsh Affairs Corrrespondent with the Western Mail. During 1980-82 he edited ARCADE- Wales Fortnightly, a cultural and current affairs magazine.  He then moved into television becoming a current affairs journalist and later producer with HTV. He produced a major 10-part documentary series The Divided Kingdom for Channel 4 in the mid-1980s. From 1988 to 1990 he was deputy editor with Wales on Sunday, helping to launch the new newspaper. During the early 1990s he worked as a freelance journalist and television producer. He became Director of the IWA in April 1996.