Ross is an internationally acknowledged expert in four related fields:

cultural formation and authenticity, including attribution studies and literary forgery (especially the poet Thomas Chatterton);

national and regional identities (primarily UK, Irish, and Anglophone);

cultural environmentalism and intangible cultural heritage (ICH), including folklore and ‘green well-being’; and

historicist readings of the Gothic from earliest times to the present day – for which he is probably best known, especially in the media.

In addition, he has written on subjects such as culture and place, William Shakespeare, and J.R.R. Tolkien.