Principal Fellow Case Studies

Louise’s role at Leeds  

As Director of Educational Engagement and Student Success at Leeds, Louise is responsible for the enrichment of the learning experience including leadership of associated strategies. This includes work to ensure that barriers to access, student success and progression are addressed to enable equity across our student communities. It necessitates a whole-institution approach and therefore teaching and learning is central to this. The work of Louise and her team has an enormous, positive impact on individuals, the institution and the HE sector, by helping to minimise the barriers to access, student success and graduate outcomes.

Louise works regionally and nationally, including being the institutional strategic lead for Go Higher West Yorkshire and Chair of a National Postgraduate Diversity Group, leading on sector-wide projects including development of strategy and trials of approaches to contextual admissions at postgraduate taught and research level. She also sits on the expert panel for the UKRI/OfS funding call for increasing diversity in postgraduate research. 

Louise holds a number of voluntary roles including trustee for an academy trust, Tutor Trust and AccessEd. Throughout her career, she has focused on engagement and inclusion. Louise received recognition for this commitment when she was awarded an MBE for services to higher education. 

The journey to becoming a Principal Fellow   

When a colleague suggested I apply for a PFHEA, I have to admit that I was surprised. It wasn’t something I had considered. I knew that Principal Fellowship status would be challenging to achieve and I wasn’t aware of examples of colleagues who work on access and student success who had been awarded it.  

However, Advance HE offer a very helpful reflective questionnaire called the AHE Fellowship Category Tool, this enables you to test the extent to which your work matches the different levels of fellowship. Completing the questionnaire confirmed that there was very close alignment with my role and outputs and when I read the guidance, I could see that it would be a very beneficial process.  

I found it very valuable to consciously make time to review my work against the criteria. It's something that can be tricky alongside everything else, but it really gave me the space to note down all the great examples I had and to sift through to identify the best. The sifting and refinement requires self-evaluation and evidence and that brought a personal benefit to really see the impact my leadership had had.   

During the application process I often had a flurry of activity and then a period where I had to leave it to one side for a while. Sometimes that was useful to provide space and to be able to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. Other times, however, it was like starting from square one!   

One of the positives that came from the timeframe in which I worked on my submission is that it really reinforced not just how important excellence in teaching and learning was to me and the way in which I contribute to it, but also my deep commitment to supporting others in this space. The latter was something I had always done but not always explicitly articulated, gathering the evidence of this helped me develop this approach even further.  

Nevertheless, I found it beneficial to write up the application and gather the evidence and I am grateful for the guidance from colleagues, including those in OD&PL, who reviewed my drafts.  

What would you say are the benefits of Principal Fellowship?  

I think one of the many benefits has been that it has really reinforced the value that the fellowship can have not just for me but also for my colleagues who may also feel that this isn’t something that they could do too. I hope to be able to support and enable others to apply and I’m looking forward to doing this.  

Do you have any tips for others thinking about applying for Principal Fellowship?  

My advice would be to go for it! It’s a lengthy but rewarding process. I attended an introductory session with AdvanceHE and that was really helpful for giving me the impetus to get started on it. I also found that it’s so much harder to make meaningful changes to your drafts if you are only able to grab an hour here or there. I made the most progress on those two or three occasions where I dedicated more significant time to it.  

What are the next steps you have in mind now that you have achieved Principal Fellowship?  

I would love to find more opportunities to share work and research as well as continuing to support others.  

Niall’s role at Leeds   

I am the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Business at Leeds.  It is a full spectrum role; thus, I  work across student education, research, engagement and faculty operations. I also work with colleagues across the university and attend central university meetings. As well as being Deputy Dean,  I am also a Professor of Technology and Organisation and thus continue to research in areas relating to the social and organisational implications of information systems. Before joining Leeds, I  was at Lancaster University for 23 years,  and I was an Associate Dean for Education, a Head of Department, a Research Centre Director, and a Programme Director. I mention this as I was awarded my PFHEA while still at Lancaster University.   

The journey to becoming a Principal Fellow    

Applying to become a PFHEA had been on my mind for some time. It took me a while to get around to doing it, though! I had been a referee for many Senior Fellowship applications. I always enjoyed reading the applications.  I learned much from the applicant’s reflections on their career trajectory, values, and motivations. A few people suggested I apply for the Principal Fellowship, but I did not think much about it. Then, I was asked to be a referee for a Principal Fellowship application. I think this is what finally gave me the push I needed. I found it interesting to read and relatable.

I decided that I had reached a point in my career when taking stock, reflecting, and making connections across my many different experiences and roles, made sense to me. At that point, I was already a professor on a research track. I had recently undertaken a few significant organisational roles and led several university-wide strategic projects, such as an employability thematic review and a thematic review on graduate attributes. I also participated in the group developing the first educational strategy and the first Teaching Excellent Framework submission. I was also on an international education board and led a development for the board. 

I was assigned an advisor to work with. I found this very helpful. Initially, we reviewed my responses to the Advance HE AHE Fellowship Category Tool. This tool confirmed that the PFHEA was the right level for me. It also highlighted those areas where I was not as strong. My advisor asked some probing questions that prompted considerable reflection. This led to me thinking through what I had done more carefully, making connections, remembering many things I had put to the back of my mind or not thought much about, projects I had worked on, reports I had written and papers I had published related to the criteria. Soon, I felt confident I had the experience and could prove it against the criteria.  

I was surprised by the range of areas I had worked on and, cumulatively, the achievements I had secured at my former institution. I was also grateful for the guidance and feedback from a colleague (akin to OD&PL) who ran the PFHEA scheme. She read my first and my final drafts. This prompted further change. 

I did not rush the process; I enjoyed the opportunity to reflect. However, putting the application on one side and focusing on the day-to-day issues was a little too easy! I could have done it much quicker than I did. In the end, I put aside a week one summer and put it all together, gathered the evidence, filled in the framework, secured my references, etc,  and submitted it. I was awarded the PFHEA about three months after applying. 

As a full spectrum academic and as someone who has been promoted to professor on a research track,  I  am very keen to emphasise that Advance HE qualifications are not just for those on a teaching and scholarship route. At a research-led educational institution, I would encourage all colleagues to see the value of reflecting on their educational leadership and practice. I would be delighted if more University of Leeds colleagues, regardless of their track, consider undertaking Advance HE qualifications such as the PFHEA.   

What would you say are the benefits of a Principal Fellowship?   

I would say the benefits are considerable. The framework is very well designed. The more and more you use it to probe and reflect on your experience, the more you learn about yourself, what you did, and how you might have done it differently.   

As I said earlier, I did it at a point in my career when it allowed me the opportunity to take stock and reflect. It helped me to deal with my long-standing imposter syndrome, validate some achievements, and reflect on things I would have done differently. If you feel you are at that point, I encourage you to review the criteria. I have also helped a few former colleagues with their applications. Seeing them become Principal Fellows has also been rewarding. 

Do you have any tips for others thinking about applying for Principal Fellowship?   

My advice would be to make sure you do it for the right reasons (not primarily for promotion). Have a look at the Advance HE category tool and answer it honestly. Slowly map your experiences and achievements against the framework, and then reach out to someone to help guide you through producing your first draft. Take your time and enjoy the process of reflecting, learning about yourself and eventually recognising the contributions you have made during your career.  

Vanessa's role at Leeds   

I am Head of the School of Education and Professor of Education. As Head of School I lead a team of about fifty academics and professional services colleagues in delivering education-based programmes at Bachelor and Masters level to undergraduates and postgraduates. As Professor of Education I work on research in my field, science education. This part of my job is very challenging to accommodate, as the Head of School role is extremely busy. However, I enjoy trying to fit everything in, and have excellent support from colleagues.  

Describe your journey to becoming a Principal Fellow    

I became a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in June 2021. A few months earlier, I completed five years as Deputy Executive Dean in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health at Durham University, and it was through this position that I worked towards Principal Fellowship. My journey started in 2017 with the encouragement of the Faculty Pro-Vice Chancellor, Tim Clark. As a first step, I attended an HEA workshop in York, at which I naively assumed I had already acquired sufficient experience to make an application within a few months. How wrong could I be? Feedback on my first albeit draft iteration suggested I needed experience of leading initiatives that operated across multiple faculties, rather than just one. I decided to keep PFHEA as an aspiration and wait until opportunities presented themselves, meanwhile accumulating relevant experience in multiple ways, updating the form every few months or so. I led University-wide initiatives for postgraduate researchers that included developing a handbook for PGR supervisors and various schemes to promote employability. I decided to try again. With mentoring from Sam Nolan, a Durham colleague who had completed PFHEA successfully, I prepared the 13th version of my application. Significantly, I realised the importance of using ‘I’ messages rather than ‘we’, forcing me to think through my personal contributions to the initiatives I presented. A second factor, prompted by Sam, was to report as case studies rather than in a full narrative format. This forced my reporting to adopt a concise, focused style that illustrated a range of contrasting contributions that met the criteria. Finally, I decided not to be shy about asking for supportive references from colleagues. After some final tweaks, I clicked ‘submit’. A few weeks later I was surprised and delighted to find that my submission was accepted without requests for modifications – and that I could claim the prized designation of Principal Fellow. I wrote a short piece about my journey for Advance HE which you can read here: Fourteen versions to success | Advance HE. 

What would you say are the benefits of Principal Fellowship?  

Having the Principal Fellowship helped me get this job at Leeds – it was noticed as part of my application. I have also been able to give advice to others seeking Principal Fellowship. PFHEA is a high level qualification that signifies breadth and depth of contribution to teaching and learning so is taken seriously as a marker of experience.  

  Do you have any tips for others thinking about applying for Principal Fellowship?  

 My advice would be:  

• Be patient – it takes time to build a portfolio that meets the criteria  
• Take opportunities that fit your personal interests – don’t take on a task ‘just’ to get the Principal Fellowship  
• Remember that this is an ‘I’ application – Principal Fellowship is about claiming responsibility for leading  
• Get a coach / support system to give constructive feedback / advice  

What are the next steps you have in mind now that you have achieved Principal Fellowship?  

I am continuing to develop as an academic leader at Leeds. I have worked with colleagues in the School to effect change and would be pleased to support others in similar roles.  

Chrissi's role at Leeds   

Curriculum Redefined and the institutional ambition and investment to transform student education brought me to Leeds in September 2022.

I am a Professor in Creative and Open Education in the School of Education, the Academic Lead for Discovery and a Senior Lead of the Knowledge Equity Network. I teach on the MA in Digital Education and further MA progammes within the School and love working with our amazing students who are from many different parts of the world. With colleagues internally and externally, as well as students, we imagine and co-design alternative ways to teach and support students’ learning to awaken, activate and boost creativity, collaboration and action to make a difference and positive contribution to our world. The international award-winning Creativity for Learning in Higher Education community, short #creativeHE, I founded in 2015 provides a space to connect, experiment and learn with others across borders. The community has brought pedagogic rebels together, created multiple opportunities for experimentation, collaboration, research and open educational resources as well as events and courses. I am also a global accreditor for Advance HE, an Advisory board member of the UNESCO Programme Open Education for a Better World Programme and a Committee member of the Open Education Awards for Excellence organised by Open Education Global for the last 2 years. I am an international member of the Open Education Advisory Group, National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, at the Higher Education Authority (HEA) in Ireland.

Collaborative open scholarship projects, I initiated and led, that have enabled and nurtured staff and student partnership working since arriving at Leeds are:

• The e(ducational)-pizza game (Nerantzi, Hammersley, McDonald, Briggs, Brew, Lickiss, Gilmore, Gooch, Iturriagagoitia, Reader, and Martinez-Arboleda, 2023) with colleagues and students, supported by Curriculum Redefined, to diversify curriculum design conversations through play now used in design sprints and other related activities in different parts of the University.
• The crowdsourced open book 101 creative ideas to use AI in education (Nerantzi, Abegglen, Karatsiori and Martinez-Arboleda, 2023) collaboration with colleagues from #creativeHE in the UK, Canada and Greece.
• The second collectionfollowed in 2024 by Abegglen, Nerantzi, Karatsiori, Martinez-Arboleda, Atenas and Rowell - the collection as a whole has won the international Award for Curation/Repository by OEGlobal in 2024.
• The special issue exploring people centred design in the context of curriculum and learning design in higher education (Nerantzi, Hammersley and Lopez, 2023).

Furthermore, in 2023/24, together with many colleagues, we received funding from the Horizons Institute and co-designed and co-facilitated with many educators and students the Social Justice Jam: Spaces for Change led by Vasiliki Kioupi from the University of Leeds, in collaboration with Tafadzwa Mushonga from the University of Pretoria, as well as the Mothong African Heritage site and Mamelodi, Ls14trust and the local community of Seacroft. This jam is proposed as a prototype scaffold design for the under development Student-Organised, Unbounded Learning *(SOUL) modules to complement the current Discovery offer and recognise co- and extra-curricular lifewide and lifelong experiential learning in flexible and equitable ways for all our students and bring such experiences into the curriculum.

Describe your journey to becoming a Principal Fellow    

In 2008, I gained FHEA through completing a PgCert in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. My appetite for critical, creative and open pedagogies and practices accelerated. There was no way back.

Getting into Academic Development at the same time, and continuing working towards further qualifications, driven by my curiosity and wanting to make a difference to my students and the students of my students, I started systematically engaging with more experimental approaches, inquiry and research that seemed to push the boundaries of established practices and created alternative novel opportunities for learning and development. I introduced playful and creative approaches, such as LEGO and LEGO(R) SERIOUS PLAY(R), for example, in 2010 when not many others did, and set-up open, cross-institutional professional development initiatives shortly after at a time when provision was predominantly much inwards facing. My work with Alison James around LSP and Play led to multiple joint publications, one of them is the Power of Play book (James and Nerantzi, 2019), which attracted worldwide attention and we were recently invited to consider a second edition due to its success.

In 2012, I became an HEA/Advance HE global accreditor and applied for SFHEA shortly after. At the time, I was a programme leader, mentoring colleagues to progress their academic careers and support curriculum design activities across disciplines. Then, I also started taking on roles of external accreditor on institutional PSF schemes. My work as an accreditor created multiple opportunities to work with many very experienced and knowledgeable colleagues on institutional panels, as well as with accreditors nationally and later internationally. This has helped me get insights into HE practices in different parts of the UK and beyond which has also been a valuable learning opportunity for me.

My open and collaborative ethos, love of learning and my innovations in open cross-institutional professional development and creativity for learning naturally helped me to connect with colleagues nationally and internationally and collaborate on projects that have had a wider strategic impact. In 2018, I applied for PFHEA. My application focused on the work I have been leading nationally and internationally and particularly around open, cross-institutional and creative professional development and higher education practice.

Earlier, in 2015, I was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship and in 2017 I was named the ALT Learning Technologist of the Year. I would not have applied myself for these awards myself and am grateful to colleagues who encouraged me. Gaining these awards helped me realise that what I do adds value and is indeed impactful and influences change also strategically, which was then recognised through the PFHEA as well.

What would you say are the benefits of Principal Fellowship?   

PFHEA is awarded by Advance HE, either through direct application or an institutional accredited scheme. At Leeds, PFHEA applications are submitted directly to Advance HE. These are reviewed by a panel of global Advance HE accreditors who have many years of experience reviewing applications from the UK and internationally.

The process of applying or working towards PFHEA itself is invaluable. It will help you pause and reflect on who you are as a strategic leader, reflect on your approach, what has worked and celebrate successes, as well as identify areas for further refinement and development. Engaging with leadership literature will help you see with greater clarity why you do things in the way you do them and get a better understanding about your effectiveness and see how your contribution impacts strategically on others. It will also help you shape strategic change projects and initiatives and their success.

Gaining PFHEA is a valuable professional recognition through which your impactful contribution as a strategic leader is celebrated. The recognition is also valid internationally and may help you expand your strategic leadership influence even further, enable you to work more closely with other strategic leaders and may also enhance your career opportunities and progression.

However, as with everything in life, it is not what you have but what you do with it.

Do you have any tips for others thinking about applying for Principal Fellowship?   

First of all, make sure you are ready and have the required experience and evidence of impact of being a strategic leader within or beyond the institution in the last five years.

Remember, being a strategic leader does not necessarily link by default to a strategic leadership or very senior position you hold in an institution. Engage with Descriptor 4 of the PSF23 mindfully and read the guidance carefully to first establish if you meet all the requirements. Even if you do or are unsure, discuss your situation and ambition with a colleague who is a Principal Fellow first before starting the application process. If you realise that you are not ready, see the process as developmental and get a mentor you trust to help you on this journey. And if you know another colleague who is applying for PFHEA from our institution or a different one, buddy up so that you can support each other. Remember, this is not a competition. All you need to do is provide the evidence that you meet all the requirements and everybody who meets these will get this professional recognition.

What are the next steps you have in mind now that you have achieved Principal Fellowship?

Over the years, I have mentored many colleagues towards professional recognition, national and international teaching awards, including NTF and CATE, and senior promotions. Seeing others develop and grow brings me great joy and I plan to continue.

My current institutional roles as the Academic Lead for Discovery and Senior Lead of the Knowledge Equity Network, provides valuable opportunities to maximise my contribution to the institution which fills me with excitement. I am fortunate to work with many highly committed and innovative colleagues in different Schools, Departments and Professional Services and together with our students we have a unique opportunity to re-imagine the way we learn and teach. Our collective energy and commitment to transformative student education will continue driving us and help us succeed.

I would like to thank Antonio, Fiona, Thom, Margaret, Anne, Kenny, John, Allie, Simon G, Simon R, Simon V, Damian, Sarah B, Kenny, Iria, Vanessa, Sarah C, Patricia, Cathy, Dimitra, Vasiliki, Yasmin, Delyth, Lou, Annie and many others.

Ask yourself, if you are a sofa what sofa would you be as a strategic leader? Check out what sofa I would be as a strategic leader. How could your sofa help you reflect on who you are as a strategic leader, who you want to become and what this means to you on your journey towards PFHEA?

Joanne's role at Leeds

I have worked at the University of Leeds for many years, but I have been lucky enough to have had a variety of roles so it has not felt like such a long time. I started at the Language Centre on the International Foundation Year and then worked closely with the Leeds University Business School, leading the Business and Management pre-sessional programmes for twelve years or so. During that time I served on various university committees, including the Standing Group on Collaborative Provision, and travelled extensively on behalf of the University, both for marketing purposes and liaising with various partner universities.    

Since 2016, I have been working in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences as the Director of Year 1 in the South-West Jiaotong – Leeds Joint School, which has a physical presence in Chengdu. I spend a lot of my time travelling to China and if I am not there, dealing with the students and staff there online. I have a substantial role in SWJTU staff CPD, particularly in the area of English Medium Instruction, and I am involved in staff development in Leeds, as a founder member of TALENT, the EPS teaching and learning network.  

I see my role as encouraging and developing staff in the consideration of the needs of their students they teach, particularly with regards to linguistic and cultural awareness, and constantly seek to foster collaboration between subject and language specialists in both Leeds and South-West Jiaotong University and beyond. I am a passionate advocate of staff progression following the teaching and scholarship route within the Faculty and the wider university and serve as a mentor and support for Advance HE qualifications and promotion applications and lead a large interdisciplinary project on English Medium Instruction and Transnational education.   

Describe your journey to becoming a Principal Fellow   

I had been a Senior Fellow for some time but there were several spurs to starting my Principal Fellow journey. One was completing the Advance HE survey which pointed me towards this category and the other was the fact that the elements that I thought were strongly in my favour, such as my role in setting up the Joint School, were time sensitive. I was conscious, for example, that I might not be asked to be the keynote speaker at the Student Education conference, as I was in 2017, many more times. In other words, the time was right. 

I joined a group of colleagues in a PFHEA Team who were all interested in applying for the Principal Fellowship, who interestingly fell broadly into two categories, both of which presented challenges. One group was composed of people in high management positions who would have to prove that they were not just doing their ordinary jobs in making change happen and the other was those of us who were not in high positions who would have to prove that we did implement change. I think everyone felt like a bit of an imposter. We were very well supported by OD&PL and Advance HE, but the main problems were finding the time to write and writing the application in an appropriate way. There were several key factors that kept me on the right track. 

One was choosing my Advocates, who were all hugely influential in giving me the confidence to pursue the application. One was the former Dean of EPS who had worked closely with me in the Joint School and in Engineering, another was my counterpart in the SWJTU-Leeds Joint School and the third was a colleague from Reading with whom I had set up the international BALEAP Special Interest Group on transnational education. I was overwhelmed by the influence they said I had had on them, their practice or their institution.  

The second important stage in my journey was asking colleagues and relatives for feedback on my application. My sister-in-law basically told me that the examples I was using were good, but I needed to use verbs like ‘instigate, lead, implement, influence’ in describing what I had done.  

The third experience, which not everyone has had and at the time I perhaps wished I had not had either, was the fact that my first application was rejected. It was difficult to start again but I felt that the time I had already spent meant that I should continue. It is easy to say lightly ‘the worse that can happen is that you’ll be turned down’, but it is demoralising if that happens. What saved me from that was the fact that Advance HE gave me very detailed feedback about my original application, both in writing and in person, so I knew what they valued about my experience and how I should present it. It made me feel good to read that my role the Joint School was ‘deeply impressive’ or that the integration between content and language specialists was a ‘key strength’ because this is what I do. 

What would you say are the benefits of Principal Fellowship?  

I think the Principal Fellowship gives me confidence because a national body has recognised and validated my experience and expertise. I come from a language background but work in Engineering and my work spans international boundaries and at least two universities, so people are not always quite sure what I do or what I could offer, but the PFHEA gives me some status in their eyes and they are perhaps more prepared to listen to me as a result. I know I know what I am talking about in strategic terms but the PFHEA gives me an external boost. 

 Do you have any tips for others thinking about applying for Principal Fellowship?  

I would first make sure that you are applying for the right type of fellowship. The Principal Fellow is not just the next step after the Senior Fellow as they deal with different criteria and different categories of roles. But at the same time, it is important not to under-sell yourself. You do not have to be very senior management to manage or implement change, indeed it is often more challenging to ‘manage up’ than ‘manage down’. Strategic visions are often implemented in practice by less senior managers.  

I would also advise seeking the help of others, as in any other self-promotion exercise, because even if you secretly know your own value, it is hard to describe it without being attacked by self-doubt or feeling a fraud. I think the last piece of advice is being mindful about how you write and take care to be explicit and clear about your own contribution to whatever achievement you are describing. I was told that I needed to ‘spring off the page’. This is not appropriate for all genres of course but my understanding is that this has to be personal.    

What are the next steps you have in mind now that you have achieved Principal Fellowship?  

I am very conscious that I left it a bit late to stop being totally embroiled in my daily work and focus on my career development, so I really enjoy guiding and helping others to think about their career plan and progression and not make the same mistake. I am regularly asked to be a mentor in HEA and promotion applications and I have signed up to be a mentor for the PRISE scheme. 

My current major project is as the main editor of a volume to be entitled ‘English Medium Instruction: issues of language and identity in the transnational context’ due to be submitted to the publisher next year. I feel this would be real achievement, not just in contributing my own chapters, but because there are almost 20 content and language specialists from both universities working and writing together who have not hitherto done much pedagogic research.  

I would like to expand my role in transnational education, perhaps with the UK-China Institute Alliance or in other areas of the world, as I feel I have a lot to offer both at the operational and strategic level. 

Having accomplished all that, I perhaps should follow my own advice and start looking at writing the Grade 10 application.

Anne's role at Leeds   

I am a professor of Sustainability and Business in the School of Earth and Environment. Until 2022, I was the Pro-dean for Student Education in the Faculty of Environment. I also was academic lead for the University’s new approach to Welcome that we initiated during the Pandemic. I am now a member of the Leadership Team for the Sustainable Curriculum programme, chairing the Steering Group that reports to the Climate Plan Board and chair the Professional Development and Recognition Oversight Group. I continue to teach students on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes on sustainability. 

Describe your journey to becoming a Principal Fellow    

Putting together my PFHEA application gave me the crucial space and framework to reflect on my contributions and consider where I add value. As a pro-dean I became increasingly involved in institutional projects, taking on leadership roles as chair of various governance groups. 

However, what I think has been more important in my journey to Principal Fellow was the opportunity to reflect on connect research, theory and educational practice, and to ensure that change initiatives are not silos but inform related activities. I act as a broker working across disciplinary borders (inter-disciplinarity) and bridging between academic and practitioner worlds (trans-disciplinarity).   

My role as an academic leader is all about working in partnership with professional service staff, which has been critical for creating new spaces for organisational learning, such as in our new approach to Welcome and the Sustainable Curriculum programme which draws on the expertise of the Sustainability Service in partnership with insights from teaching staff across disciplines. 

What would you say are the benefits of Principal Fellowship?   

As a Professor of Sustainability and Business with a background in global development, my disciplinary, and indeed interdisciplinary focus is on working towards a more sustainable future through education, informed by social and environmental justice.  Writing the application was an opportunity for me to articulate the linkages between different aspects of my practice, and to demonstrate that there are other ways of being an academic rather than being the publish or perish focus on citations and large grants.  Being awarded a Principal Fellow has provided important validation of my mode of being an academic and educational leader. 

Do you have any tips for others thinking about applying for Principal Fellowship?   

Think about your story and identity as an academic and the different ways you have generated impact, and on whom.   

Try to think holistically about your practice and if there are core thematic areas in which you have made a difference at institutional level or beyond.  These can form the basis of your case studies.  Reflecting on case studies of projects is an important part of the Principal Fellow process, but for me, the focus on “Integrative Academic Practice” was the most compelling element.  It’s about a holistic approach to being an academic leader – bringing together values, practice, relationships, and knowledge in a reciprocal way. 

What are the next steps you have in mind now that you have achieved Principal Fellowship?   

In my future leadership work I aim to continue to build linkages between institutional initiatives, and to ensure that strategies are both values-led, and importantly, embedded into professional development, support structures and everyday practice. 

I recently initiated a project to generate and sustain a more supportive culture for teaching in the university and have linked up with like-minded academics and professional service staff internationally.  I aim to bring this experience and insight into the University’s new Career Pathways project.  I am also leading a project to map out the University’s international education partnerships, to better understand their objectives and impacts with a view to developing a clear institutional framework that upholds ethical practices to unlock opportunities for transformative, reciprocal learning that meets the needs of the global community.