Keynote Speakers

James Dunphy is the Director of Educational Excellence at Advance HE. He is responsible for delivering Advance HE’s portfolio of work on educational excellence, including the responsibility for the Professional Standards Framework.

James was Director of Access, Learning and Outcomes at the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) at during a key time of policy change in higher education – contributing to a national review, which proposed the creation of a Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework – and holding executive responsibility for SFC’s work on skills, widening access and the quality of learning and teaching.

Previously, James was Director of Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Access at Robert Gordon University (RGU), where he led significant institution-level change, securing improved performance in the National Student Survey and being part of the team involved in the University’s successful TEF gold outcome.

During his time with RGU, James led a multi-institution tertiary partnership, a student-facing service and also played a key role in the development of degree apprenticeships, including as a non-executive Director of Scotland’s National Centre for Work Based Learning.

James is a Principal Fellow of Advance HE and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Keynote Speech Title: Implementing educational excellence – our collective opportunity to deliver for learners of the future

The keynote will prompt colleagues to consider the steps we need to take to promote and enable excellence across our higher education offer – taking account of changing student needs, developments in technology and our own professional commitments to ensuring high quality, transformational, higher education. The keynote will share insights from Advance HE’s work across the globe, providing future focused advice to inspire enhancement of learning and teaching.