Dr Nigel Healey is Professor of International Higher Education and Vice President (Global and Community Engagement) at the University of Limerick. He is currently serving as Interim Provost and Deputy President. Prior to his appointment at the University of Limerick in April 2020, he held senior academic positions at Fiji National University, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Canterbury and Manchester Metropolitan University, as well as teaching positions at the University of Leicester and Leeds Beckett University.
Dr Healey has served as an economic policy advisor to the prime minister of Belarus and the deputy minister of economy of the Russian Federation and managed a number of multinational research and economic development projects in Europe and Asia. His current research interests are in the internationalization of higher education, transnational education and higher education policy and management.
Kai Peters is Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Business & Law as well as International Development at Coventry University and a member of the Coventry University Group Leadership Team since 2017.
Previously, he was Dean/Director of Ashridge from 2003 to 2015. Following the 2015 strategic alliance of Ashridge with Hult International Business School, Peters was appointed Chief Academic Officer of the combined institution. Prior to joining Ashridge, Peters was Dean, and previously director of MBA programs, at the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) of Erasmus University in the Netherlands, one of the first schools in Europe to achieve the accreditation triple crown.
Peters has written or co-written 10+ books and chapters and 50+ academic and practitioner articles on leadership and management education including the books Steward Leadership: A Maturational Perspective for the University of Cape Town Press in 2013 and Rethinking Business Schools for Emerald Publishing in 2018. Two of his articles were selected as the best articles in the EFMD’s Global Focus in 2021. He has been twice selected in the UK for HR magazine’s top 100 HR professionals.
Margaret Topping is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement at Queen’s University Belfast. She is also Professor of French and Intercultural Communication, and her current research is centred on the debates surrounding travel, migration and mobility, the ethics and aesthetics of cross-cultural communication and representation, and the public value of the arts and humanities. Her forthcoming book, The Humanities Pandemic: Towards an Essential Services Approach argues for the importance of the Humanities in tackling global challenges such as Covid.
Professor Topping also takes a lead role in a number of social innovation initiatives both within Queen’s University and in the wider community. She is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Turnaround Project, a charity providing transitional employment opportunities for people coming out of the justice system. She is also involved with a range of projects with cross-community youth organisations in Belfast creating opportunities for young people to achieve their potential.
Frank Coton is Senior Vice Principal and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) and is a member of the Senior Management Group of the University of Glasgow. He has University level responsibility for leading the development and implementation of the University Strategy, planning, budgeting and the processes and policies associated with academic career development. He also has responsibility for oversight and leadership of the development, implementation and governance of the University strategy in relation to IT and digital technologies.
Frank previously had responsibility for educational policy and strategy and all teaching quality processes across the University of Glasgow. He also had oversight of the development of the physical and digital teaching environment. He is former Chair of the UK Russell Group Committee of Pro-Vice Chancellors for Learning and Teaching. He is also former Chair of the Student Experience Steering Group of the Universitas 21 global university network.
Emma Stokes PhD PT is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and was appointed to serve as the Vice President for Global Engagement in 2021. She qualified as a physiotherapist/physical therapist in 1990 and has been an educator for over 2 decades. In 2018 she moved to the Middle East to set up the academic department of Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation Science at Qatar University and led an international team who developed an innovative and future-oriented curriculum for the first program educating physical therapists in Qatar.
From 2015, she has served as the President of World Physiotherapy, working closely with the staff and board, and the wider global physiotherapy community, leading a transformation of the organisation. With a small group of committed colleagues, she was instrumental in the foundation of the Global Rehabilitation Alliance which was a precursor of the WHO World Rehabilitation Alliance. She has taught and lectured in over 40 countries in the world.
Claire is a business leader with experience in launching and growing new ventures in fast paced, high growth digital businesses backed by private investors – with a recent focus in EdTech. She has extensive commercial and operational experience across strategic partnership management, marketing, customer experience, product strategy and business strategy. A demonstrated history of delivering profitable growth, building high performing teams, and leading change to deliver improved employee and customer experience.
John manages a broad portfolio of international education research and intelligence produced across the British Council’s global insight hub network. Key outputs include market intelligence briefs, thought leadership reports and data tools that assist UK universities to recruit international students and develop transnational education partnerships. Prior to joining the British Council in 2019, John ran his own international education consultancy, and before that worked as a senior economist with the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. John has degrees in Economics from University College Dublin and the University of Galway.
Professor Helen McCarthy holds the Chair of Nanomedicine in the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast and is the Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Business Development. Helen is also the CEO of pHion Therapeutics. Helen’s research is centred on novel non-viral delivery systems for nucleic acids and anionic small molecules. These are peptide delivery systems that are purposely designed to solve key criteria for controlled intracellular delivery. Apart from supervising >40 PhD students, >150 publications, >200 conference proceedings and editorial work, Helen has contributed new knowledge as the inventor of the RALA technology and is a named inventor on 18 patents. After 10 years of academic applications of the technology, Helen spun out her technology into pHion Therapeutics, which incorporated in 2017. pHion currently employs 20 and has recently secured new premises in Catalyst innovation centre in Titanic Quarter with state-of-the-art laboratories.
Clodagh McGivern studied Corporate Law in NUI Galway (now University of Galway) and graduated in August 2021. She was elected as the Vice President – Education Officer for NUI Galway Students’ Union for the 2021/2022 academic year. After her term in Galway came to an end, she ran for the Vice President for Academic Affairs for the Union of Students in Ireland and was elected as the officer for the 2022/2023 academic year. During her term she has worked closely with students, sabbatical officers and stakeholders in higher education to represent third level students across Ireland.
