Professor Toby Greany

Toby Greany is Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham. He was previously a professor at UCL’s Institute of Education (UCL IOE) and before that worked for the National College for School Leadership. Toby’s research is focused on how policy and practice interact to shape educational opportunities and outcomes, in particular across local systems and through networks, and the nature and role of leadership in these processes.  Several of his projects focus on place, asking how local schooling systems are developing in the context of wider societal and policy changes. His research into England’s ‘self-improving school-led system’ reforms (Greany and Higham, 2018) was described by the Observer newspaper as “a seminal analysis”.  He has advised the OECD, EU and ministries in several countries on issues relating to school leadership and system reform. His most recent book is: Leading Educational Networks: Theory, Policy and Practice (Bloomsbury, 2022, co-authored with Annelies Kamp).

Dr Mike Collins

Mike Collins is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham working principally on the Researching Sustainable School Leadership project. Mike’s career in education has included twenty years in schools including in senior leadership, work in a Local Authority, the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) and latterly the Department for Education in England (DfE). Mike completed his doctorate with UCL, Institute of Education in which he used a complexity perspective to investigate the emergence of executive leadership in a Multi Academy Trust. His thesis was recognised with runner-up in the BELMAS Doctoral Thesis award 2023.  His interests are in educational leadership and educational improvement especially in relation to social justice, leadership in complexity and the use of complexity perspectives to shape research, networks more generally and the use of Social Network Analysis

Professor Pat Thomson

Pat Thomson PhD PSM, FAcSS, FRSA is Professor of Education in the School of Education, The University of Nottingham.  She was for twenty years a serving senior school leader in disadvantaged schools in South Australia, and a senior civil servant in the Department for Education and Children’s Services. She is a life member of the South Australian Secondary School Principals Association and a former President. Her research focuses on socially just school change in a number of sites including alternative settings, museum and gallery programmes, and arts education. She has a particular interest in the work of school leaders. She maintains an academic writing blog patter (patthomson.net) and is active on social media as @ThomsonPat. Her most recent books are Cultural citizenship. Arts education for life (Routledge 2023, with Christine Hall) and Refining your academic writing. Strategies for reading, revising and rewriting (Routledge 2023). 

Dr Tom Perry

Tom Perry is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education Studies at University of Warwick. His research and teaching focus on research-and evidence-informed education policy and practice. He researches and has specialist methodological expertise relating to systematic review and evidence synthesis; quantitative methods and secondary data analysis; evaluation, improvement and enquiry; social scientific methodology; and knowledge mobilisation, exchange and use. Substantive topics of particular interest featuring in his research include applied cognitive science, structural reform, inequalities, accountability, school improvement and professional development. Tom leads the University of Warwick’s education doctorate (EdD) programme, the research methods course for postgraduate taught students in education studies, co-leads a module on equity and effectiveness in education, and teaches on the advanced research methods course for doctoral students. Tom is an active and engaged academic, supporting advisory and expert groups; speaking at academic, professional and policy conferences and events; and advising and working on numerous research and development projects.