Hi, I'm Alisdair!

My KE career began before I started working in HE, when I worked as a consultant in what is now called place-making, as my role involved facilitating productive collaborations between developers, councils, policy-makers, creative professionals, local businesses and communities (the classic quadruple helix!).  From this role I progressed into HE, where I initially worked in a planning and policy function, but then moved on to increasingly senior roles working at the interface between research and innovation funding, and broader KE activities.  I am now Director of KE at UAL, where I lead on strategic co-ordination across our full KE portfolio, manage our institutional HEIF allocation, jointly manage our research and innovation funding support service, and lead on all KE-related institutional reporting.  
 

Although I have spent most of my career working in the creative and HE sectors, I actually started my career working in multi-utility infrastructure implementation in new housing developments, where I managed a head office team who co-ordinated construction works across the North of England.  This fast-paced, outcomes-focused commercial sector experience has been invaluable in my subsequent KE career.

Developing the KE leadership course with a very experienced group of KE peers and an executive education expert has been a great professional learning experience for me.  It has also been a real pleasure on a personal level, as I have got to spend a lot of time with some brilliant people discussing subjects of personal interest.  It’s also going to be exciting to hear the diverse perspectives and experiences of these subjects from course participants.

One of the modules of the course that I co-deliver is on Governance.  At UAL I successfully advocated for and then facilitated implementation of a new dedicated governance structure for KE, integrating formal academic and operational governance structures, as well as more informal and task-oriented functions, all of which ultimately report to Academic Board, Executive Board and our Court of Governors.  This has helped to provide new fora for developing our KE culture and community, supported institutional responses to the KEF and the KE Concordat, and has firmly established KE as an activity with equal standing to research and teaching within our institution.  Governance can often be seen as restricting and controlling, but I believe it can be really enabling and empowering as well – it all depends on your approach.