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 2025 I visited Università della Svizzera italiana in Switerland to mark five years of the European Universities Initaitive and co-chaired a panel of the Knowledge Politics and Policies section of the European Consortium of Political Research Annual Conference in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

In 2024 I was invited to visit, and speak at, the Transnational School of Governance European University Institute in Florence. 

I particularly enjoy hosting visiting colleagues. In 2024, the University’s bicentenary year, I welcomed 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. I have contributed to The Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference in Bucharest on three occasions, the outcomes of which feed into the Ministerial Conferences of the European Higher Education Area.

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.

Earlier in my career I combined consultancy with academic work where I was known as the university troubleshooter. 

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