Rory Stanton

Rory Stanton is a Senior Lecturer and a former director of the Human Resource Development (International Development) programme in the Global Development Institute (GDI).

After working initially in the private sector, Rory spent five years working for UNICEF in southern Africa as an Assistant Project Officer for the organisation’s HIV/AIDS Prevention Project in Zimbabwe, and as a Communications Officer for UNICEF-Lusaka in Zambia. Following this, Rory completed an MA in the Sociology of Development and the Anthropology of Globalisation at the University College Cork, Ireland. He later took his studies further by undertaking doctoral studies at the Institute for Development Policy and Management (now GDI). His research, focusing on the Zambian context, explored how the disparities between the development practices and routines of large NGOs and global/historical migration practices produce conflicting developmental worldviews and aspirations between ostensibly significant programmes of action and populations of countries like Zambia.

Upon completion of his PhD studies Rory worked as a development and editorial consultant for various educational and policy institutes including the University of Manchester and the Korean Institute of Public Administration. He returned to academia through facilitating participatory research seminars in IDPM/GDI and progressed to course convenor, to co-director of the HRD (International Development) programme, and then to leadership roles in the institute, School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED), and the Faculty of Humanities.

Currently, Rory sits on the SEED School Executive as the Director of Teaching, Learning and Students. He continues to convene the HRD programme’s core research module.

Rory has supervised over 60 Masters students (on-campus and distance-learning) to successful completion of their research dissertations. These research topics have included HRD and creativity, NGOs from the point of view of practice, capacity development, empowerment, etc., gender and HRD, HRD in China, IT and HRD, and politics and social media.

Service and Leadership

Director of Teaching, Learning and Students, School of Environment, Education and Development (2024 to date)

GDI Director of Postgraduate Teaching & Learning (2023-2024)

SEED Staff Peer Reviewer of Teaching (2022 to date)

Programme Co-Director, Human Resource Development (International Development) (2017 to 2024)

Fieldwork Lead for MSc Human Resource Development (International Development) (2017-2020)

GDI Examinations Officer (2020-2023)

Chair of the GDI Mitigating Circumstances Committee (2018 to 2020)

Member of the GDI Mitigating Circumstances Committee (2016-2018)

GDI Equality and Diversity Champion (2019)

Internal PhD Examiner

Membership of academic bodies

Member of Development Studies Association