Prior to joining the university in 2003, I was a schoolteacher, and then an independent education consultant working on local education authority projects in schools and colleges, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Huddersfield. My doctoral research, involving an investigation into the changing individual-organisation learning relationship in SMEs, was completed in 2003. Nowadays, as well as being a supervisor of undergraduate and post-graduate research,I also research and write on the topics of schools as research-informed learning communities, and graduate employment and career experiences.