Summary

I am Associate Dean of Students for the Faculty of Business and Law and Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Enterprise.

I take a strategic lead in education and student experience in the Faculty alongside teaching, research and Knowledge Exchange in entrepreneurship and innovation.

My research takes a multidisciplinary, multi-level and engaged-activist approach to evaluate and develop entrepreneurial ecosystems, combining research and KE to enhance impacts. This has involved building innovation and entrepreneurial capacity through education, creating entrepreneurial communities and policy development for SMEs, students, graduates, trainee GPs, disadvantaged entrepreneurs and more established businesses in the regions of North West England and the Channel region of North Western France and the UK. 

I have been successful in grant capture, tendered and led research projects funded by the ERDF, ESRC, UKRI, OfS, LfHE, and HEA. I have won funds as Principal Investigator of £0.66m in the past 3 years and led the research as part of projects worth 2.34m Euros funded from the UK and Europe.

I have published in journals including: The Journal of General Management, Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, and International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations.

Research interests

My research interests are entrepreneurship, enterprise education, innovation and knowledge exchange how entrepreneurial capacity and outcomes can be developed within entrepreneurial ecosystems.

My most recent research and scholarship is in gender, disadvantage and entrepreneurship particularly Inclusive Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (IEEs) and the micro-level interactions of entrepreneurial ecosystem stakeholders, policy and practice.  I have explored ecosystems for curriculum-based Knowledge Exchange involving students, universities and external employer interactions and researched the curriculum needs for Leadership, Innovation, Management and Business for the Medical School Curriculum. 

I have successfully led the Creative Students Creating Business Project. This OfS and UKRI £0.534M funded project focused on a multistakeholder approach to explore the outcomes and practice of Student Engagement in Knowledge Exchange (SEKE). We have worked with external organisations, academics and students to determine good practice Student Knowledge Exchange and created a toolkit to enhance SEKE projects across the HE sector.

I have led a multidisciplinary research and innovation team on the Accelerating Women’s Enterprise (AWE), an Interreg-funded international collaboration between the France and UK to better understand the gendered behaviour of entrepreneurial ecosystems and to deliver gender and disadvantage-sensitive training to overcome some of these challenges.  We created 6 research reports appraising the ecosystem, determining good practices, cocreated learning resources and delivered training, and monitoring impacts. In June 2023, I launched the podcast series 'Accelerating Women's Enterprise - Stories from the frontline' to enhance the impact of AWE.

Current funding includes:

• Accelerating Women’s Enterprise, AWE £156k (extension)

Teaching responsibilities

I have significant faculty responsibilities in Learning and Teaching as Associate Dean of Students. This involves strategic leadership of education and student experience within the Faculty of Business and Law, and includes ex-officio panel member for course review and approval, and leadership for the faculty strategy and plans in the following: Recruitment and Outreach, Education and Student Experience, Digital Success Plan,  Enterprise and Employability. I am AACSB lead for four standards (4, 10,12, 13).

I supervise PhD students.