Mr Ward is currently a Reader in the School of Architecture (University of Sheffield). Mr Ward's research has mainly been in the area of building energy usage, in particular ventilation and air movement within buildings and energy issues related to building services systems. Mr Ward has been able to concentrate a large part of this research effort into the design of appropriate energy systems for passively cooling buildings in hot regions of the world, he has successfully supervised many post-graduate students. Within the air movement field Mr Ward has been successful in collaboration with colleagues in obtaining substantial external funding over several years.

He is a member of various external bodies, including the Building Environmental Performance Analysis Club (and the Air Movement Task Group), South Yorkshire Environmental Partnership, the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group, and representative on the Building Research Establishment's (BRE) Foundation for the Built Environment and the Yorkshire Bio-mass steering group.