Vice-Chancellor's Group

Graham is a member of Universities UK, a Non-Executive Director of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, Chair of Lancashire Innovation Board, Chair of the Maritime Skills Commission, Chair of MillionPlus, Chair of the University Vocational Awards Council.

Experience
Graham returned to the University after spending five years as the Vice-Chancellor of Solent University in Southampton. During that time, the University opened an iconic learning and teaching building, a new indoor sports complex and industry-ready nursing and maritime simulation centres. The University also rose significantly in all major league tables, recorded its highest ever results for student satisfaction, employability and progression and was awarded TEF Silver. This culminated in being shortlisted for the University of the Year 2019 in the Times Higher Education Awards.

Before joining Solent University as Vice-Chancellor, Graham worked as Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire. He joined the Senior Management Team in 2003 and held posts as Dean of Academic Development and Director for Cumbria.

In 2007/08 Graham was seconded to work as the national skills research director for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority at Sellafield Limited. In March 2008 he took up the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Skills and Employer Engagement) and was appointed as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) from 1 January 2010 with overall responsibility for the University's academic and research activity.

Graham also worked closely with partner institutions, particularly in Hong Kong, China and the Middle East, and he received an Outstanding Foreign Expert Award from Hebei Province, China. During 2014 he was also appointed as Honorary Professor at Hebei University in Baoding, and in 2015 was appointed as a Visiting Professor by the National Academy for Education Administration, Beijing.

Contact Details

Call the Vice Chancellor's Office
Email the Vice Chancellor's Office

George has over 20 years’ experience of providing effective financial management in large, complex and multinational organisations. Before joining the University, he was the Director of Finance (FP&A) at Ingeus, a leading global provider of employment and training services. He then set up his own financial consultancy to provide commercial expertise to both private and public sector companies.

George is a graduate of Oxford Brookes University and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Current responsibilities

• Ensuring effective governance and controls over the University’s financial operations, including the setting and monitoring of departmental budgets.
• Managing the University’s purchasing activities in order to deliver legal compliance and value for money.
• Ensuring that appropriate financial information systems, policies and procedures are robust and fit for purpose.
• Ensuring the efficient use of the University's financial, physical and intellectual assets in support of its investment plans.

Contact Details

Call George Charles
Email George Charles

Executive Assistant

Email Denise Helm

Ruth took up the role as Deputy Chief Executive in November 2021 having previously held the position of Chief Marketing Officer.

Ruth is a key member of the University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Group supporting the Vice-Chancellor in the leadership, management and effective operation of the University.

Ruth’s portfolio responsibilities cover a wide range of professional services including Estates, Academic Registry, Learning and Information Services and External Relations. She led the successful development of the University’s Strategic Plan which enhances the academic and business-related performance across the institution.

Ruth is Vice-President International and Academic Registrar.

Ruth joined us in 2018 as Executive Director for Strategic Marketing before joining the Vice-Chancellor’s Group as Chief Marketing Officer in 2019.

Experience

Before joining us, Ruth was Chief Executive at Marketing Lancashire for six years, charged with enhancing the county’s national and international profile, showcasing its strengths as a thriving economic region and driving inward investment. Before joining Marketing Lancashire Ruth was Managing Director at Shearings Leisure Group and Sales and Marketing Director at Gold Medal Travel Group.

An alumna of the University of Central Lancashire, Ruth was named as one of the Top 12 influential businesswomen in the North West by Insider Media and received the ‘Contribution to Lancashire’ Award at the Lancashire Business Awards.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Operations) Portfolio Responsibilities:

• Academic Registry
• Communications, Events and PR
• Estates and Capital projects
• External Relations and Public Affairs
• International Recruitment and Admissions
• International Partnerships and Study Abroad
• Learning and Information Systems
• Marketing and Development
• Safety, Health and Environmental Compliance
• Sport
• Strategic and Commercial Projects
• Sustainability
• UK Recruitment, Admissions and Partnerships
• Widening Participation and Public Engagement

Contact details

Call Ruth Connor
Email Ruth Connor

Executive Assistant

Call Katherine Axon
Email Katherine Axon

Janice was educated in Canada, having gained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta and her PhD in English at McMaster University. Her research interests span Victorian literature and culture, crime writing, and constructions of gender. She sits on the editorial board of Clues: a Journal of Detection and is the joint editor of both The Cambridge Companion to Sherlock Holmes (2019, with Christopher Pittard) and The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction (2020, with Guiddal, King, and Pepper), which won the 2021 International Crime Fiction Association Book Prize awarded for ingenuity, innovation, and scholarship in the academic study of crime fiction. She is currently editing the Oxford World Classics edition of Conan Doyle’s The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.

Current Responsibilities

• To provide academic leadership for the university and line management of the Deans of School.

Contact details

Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic Leadership)
Call Professor Janice Allan
Email Professor Janice Allan

Executive Assistant (Interim)
Call Cath Kilmartin
Email Cath Kilmartin

In his current role, Professor Crean is responsible for building productive networks and relationships with key stakeholders to ensure the University increases its activity in Research and Enterprise, directing the themes of those activities towards the local, regional and global strategies.

StJohn gained a Bachelor’s degree in Dental Surgery (BDS) from University College London in 1981 before attaining an MB BS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) from University College London School of Medicine in 1992. He gained a PhD from the UCL in 2000, a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education from the University of Cambridge, and has recently been awarded LLM (Medical Ethics and Law) with the University of Edinburgh.

Beyond the University, StJohn is an Honorary Consultant at East Lancashire Hospital Trust and the University of Morecambe Bay Hospitals Foundation Trust. He is currently the Robert Bradlaw advisor in the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and Editor-in-Chief of the Faculty Dental Journal (FDJ). He has held the posts of President of the North West Branch of the British Dental Association and Chairman of the Fylde Section.

His ongoing research interests include the safe management of medicalised patients in dentistry and the role of oral bacteria in systemic disease, with a focus on neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. He has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and receives regular invitations to speak to learned societies and conferences.

Current Responsibilities

• To prepare and optimise the submission for the next REF.
• To prepare and optimise future submissions for the KEF.
• To oversee the strategic growth of Research and Enterprise Services.
• To provide the Vice-Chancellor’s Group with insight and advice for clinical and medical activity.
• To represent the University on key external Research, Health and Enterprise bodies.
• To develop external business engagement formats and events.
• To provide VCG input into the operation of the AUC partnership from the clinical / medical delivery perspective.

Contact details

Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise)

Call StJohn Crean
Email StJohn Crean

Executive Assistant

Call Evgeniya Govedarova
Email Evgeniya Govedarova

Professor Jackson also founded the National Centre for Remote and Rural Medicine within the University, an internationally recognised organisation focussing on enhancing health and patient outcomes through education, research, and public engagement globally in remote and rural areas.

In her current role Professor Jackson has responsibility as the University Lead for both the Westlakes and Burnley Campus sites, in addition leading on new developments in all clinical areas for the university.

Professor Jackson builds productive relationships with key stakeholders and health care providers both within the UK and internationally to ensure that the university further builds on its strengths in the areas of healthcare education, research, and knowledge exchange.

Professor Jackson gained both a BSc Hons (1^st Class) in physiology and a degree in medicine from the University of Manchester. She gained an MD(PhD) from the University of Dundee for clinical research on airways inflammation. Professor Jackson is the embodiment of UCLan “changing lives”, her mother having been educated at UCLan as a mature student in her 30s which in turn changed not only her own life, but also that of her own three children.

Beyond the University Professor Jackson undertakes clinical sessions in both Primary Care and at the interface with secondary care. Previously she has been Deputy Chair of the NIHR HTA committee for Primary Care and Public Health and a member of NICE for over 10 years in addition to numerous other regional, national, and international committees

Professor Jackson remains research active, and her main areas of research interest lie in remote and rural medical care provision, airways inflammation and medical education. She has over 300 publications both online educational resources and peer reviewed publications and receives regular invitations to speak at conferences and learned institutions. She has authored numerous book chapters and a full text on the subject of clinical communication skills.

Contact details

Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic Leadership)
Email Professor Cathy Jackson

Executive Assistant
Email Carolyn Broomhead
Call Carolyn Broomhead

Ian is Secretary and Legal Advisor to the University Board and Company Secretary to the majority of the University’s subsidiary companies. He also heads up the Legal and Governance team and is a member of the University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Group.

Current Responsibilities

Ian is the University’s chief legal advisor and Secretary of the University Board and its Committees and Secretary of the University’s various subsidiary Companies. Other responsibilities are:

• Corporate Governance (including oversight of compliance with the Office for Students Regulatory regime)
• The provision and procurement of legal advice to the University and its Companies
• Oversight of Internal Audit Regime

Contact details

University Secretary and General Counsel

Call Ian Fisher
Email Ian Fisher

Governance Support Manager

Call Lisa Atty

Andrew joined us in September 2013 as the Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication. In 2014, he was appointed to the position of Executive Dean as the University restructured into Faculties. He then led the Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries for four years; in that time it won the Times Higher Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts and Professor Lubaina Himid CBE won the prestigious Turner Prize among other highlights. In March 2018 Andrew was promoted to a new Pro Vice-Chancellor role to provide strategic cross-institutional leadership and vision for the digital and creative industries, overseeing the Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries and the Faculty of Science and Technology. In November 2019 Andrew took up his current role as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Students and Teaching).

Prior to working here at the University of Central Lancashire, Andrew worked in the broadcast industry and held a number of academic posts in television production before moving into academic management in the Media School at Bournemouth University. In 2004 he became a National Teaching Fellow in the “Rising Stars” category for his HEFCE-funded work in group work assessment in media practice. His research interests include broadcast historiography and re-enactment techniques.

Andrew graduated from Bournemouth University with an Honours degree in Media Production. He achieved a SEDA accredited PG Cert in Professional Development and was awarded a PhD in 2012 entitled Conditions of Time and Space: A Re-enactment Experiment with the British TV Series Doctor Who.

Current Responsibilities

• Strategic leadership of teaching excellence, learning, teaching and assessment, graduate attainment and success
• Ensuring a superlative student experience
• Providing strategic oversight of the Institution’s response to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF)
• Providing strategic leadership to the Centre for Collaborative Learning
• Providing strategic leadership for Academic Quality and Enhancement
• Overseeing the Student Services provision of the University
• Providing strategic oversight of the University’s Access and Participation Plan
• Providing strategic oversight of the University’s Student Achievement Services.
• Strategic Leadership of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Contact details

Pro Vice-Chancellor (Students and Teaching)

Call Professor Andrew Ireland
Email Professor Andrew Ireland

Executive Assistant

Call Alison Wolstenholme
Email Alison Wolstenholme

Ken’s role involves driving the organisational development and culture change to underpin the realisation of the University Strategy.

Ken, who originally hails from Burnley, was HR Director of BBC North from 2008-2016. He oversaw the corporation’s HR agenda during and after the £200m implementation of the new BBC North organisation including the migration of staff to the Media City location and the development of a new creative and collaborative culture. Prior to this, he held senior Human Resources and Organisational Development roles at British Aerospace, Halifax and HBOS.

Ken graduated from the University of Oxford with a First Class Honours Degree in Jurisprudence (Law and Philosophy).

Current responsibilities

• Staff recruitment
• Staff development and engagement
• Reward and recognition
• The People Team Service and administration
• Trade Union liaison

Contact details

Chief People Officer

Call Ken Lee
Email Ken Lee

Executive Assistant

Call Cath Kilmartin
Email Cath Kilmartin