I am the author of two books: ‘Public Policy and Universities: The Interplay of Knowledge and Power’ with Cambridge University Press, and ‘Teaching Excellence?: Universities in an Age of Student Consumerism’ with Sage.

Within the Manchester Institute of Education, I am the leader of the Higher Education pathway within the MA International Education programme. 

In 2024 I was invited to visit the European University Institute in Florence. 

In 2024 I co-chaired the panel The European Universities Initiative between consolidation and expansion, part of the Knowledge Politics and Policies section of the European Consortium of Political Research Annual Conference in Dublin.

I particularly enjoy hosting visiting colleagues. In this, the University’s bicentenary year, I will welcome Professor Michael Mintrom of Monash University, Australia, and Dr Pimsiri Taylor of Thammasat University, Kingdom of Thailand, to the Manchester campus. 

I have given papers at major international conferences. In 2024 I contributed to The Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference in Bucharest, the outcomes of which feed into the 2024 Ministerial Conference of the European Higher Education Area in Tirana.

Prior to joining the University of Manchester, I undertook a vast and varied range of roles across the University of Leeds over 15 years. This included completing a scholarship funded doctorate in the School of Politics and International Studies, followed by an externally funded postdoc in the School of Education. I was also Principal Investigator and Grant Holder of a Higher Education Academy funded project.

I have held visiting positions at various universities internationally, most notably being Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Visiting Researcher at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Moreover, while at Monash University, affiliated to Better Governance and Policy, I contributed to the Monash Commission into the future of post-compulsory education in Australia.

In Southeast Asia I was involved in two higher education projects funded by the British Government's Newton Fund.

For five years I was also an Associate Editor of ‘Higher Education Research and Development’, the peer review journal of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.

• Measuring the performance of universities and the activities that take place within them
• Teaching Excellence in higher education, in theory and in practice 
• The status of teaching relative to research in the university
• University alliances and networks, multilateral and bilateral agreements
• National Excellence Initiatives and the World Class University 
• The relationship between universities and the state/ government
• The relationship between higher education and the economy 
• Education policy and British Politics, political parties and ideologies, and the workings of Westminster and Whitehall 
• Policy analysis informed by theories of the policy process
• Approaches to governance and public sector management in the context of higher education

Email: [email protected]