Benjamin Halligan

Background

About Benjamin Halligan

I have worked in the management of postgraduate research students in a number of senior capacities, across two universities, over the last eight years. From 2010 I took the role of Director of the Graduate Programme of Media, Music and Performance at the University of Salford. From 2012, I became Director of Postgraduate Research Studies for the College of Arts and Social Sciences at Salford. During this period, I also spent eleven months as Acting Associate Dean of Research for the College of Arts and Social Sciences. From November 2015, I became Director of the Doctoral College at the University of Wolverhampton. In this position, I hold responsibility for all PGRs (including Professional Doctorates, and those PGRs based overseas) across all disciplines in the university, and have worked to coalesce and enhance a university research culture for their benefit. • Work has included extended engagements with policy development and operationalisation, as well as audit preparation, around UKVI, QAA, REF and PRES. • My focus has been to organise, establish and maintain a dynamic, distinguished and outward-facing research environment, often through cost neutral initiatives. • This, in turn, has been the basis for wider network development, particularly in respect to my involvement in the creation of the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership.(Awarded £14 million of funding by the AHRC). • My direct contacts with diverse PGR communities on a weekly basis have been central to the maintenance of my awareness of their needs, concerns, achievements and aspirations and so, in turn, informs an evolving research environment strategy. • I prefer to consult widely, and to ensure that all interested parties are given a space for their voices to be heard, and a feeling of ownership of new directions and initiatives.