After leaving the University of Liverpool in 1988 with a British Academy PhD in Modernist Literature, Andy wanted to make a direct difference to students’ lives, teaching the ‘hard to reach’ in further and higher education in the UK and USA. The Fulbright Programme (1996,2001) globalised this experience, after which Andy led a large School of Creative Arts, partnering the BBC, National Skills Academy, Archant Newspapers, Arts Council East, The National Theatre and independent television companies to drive change, establishing the school as a Centre of Excellence. In 2009 he became Deputy Dean for Partnerships and Enterprise in the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University, building external income until it was in the top 25% for UK Humanities Faculties.

Andy developed a network of 60+ international partners, increasing full time staff by 500 in five years, and established a Northern European applied digital creative incubation network, which, in partnership with Sony, Jagex, and ARM, developed the EU’s largest live games jam (Brains Eden) and launched a £1 million European regional development funded applied gaming project, REACTOR, across medical technology, health, wellbeing, and SMART cities. To support this, Andy also developed a collaboration with Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences in Design Thinking, and became a Director of Cambridge Live, including Cambridge Folk Festival. Since assuming a post at Bath Spa, initially as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Andy has had the opportunity to further develop a range of innovation projects leading to a promotion to Pro Vice Chancellor External in June 2019 and a Professorship in Creative and Social Enterprise in Spring 2020. He worked on a large joint University, local authority and business initiative; ISTART (Innovation Science Technology Arts Research Teaching) with pilot deliveries beginning back in Autumn 2020. Now fully established, this project is now known as FWD.

Over the last five years as Pro-Vice Chancellor External, Andy has established a new External Affairs Unit to drive marketing and communications, and new business development. The latter has been spearheaded by the new Short Course Unit, which has specialized in upskilling and reskilling over 1000 adults across demand areas from creative technology to sustainability to healthcare in new and varied formats. The Unit has also rapidly accelerated the University’s relevance with a wide range of external stakeholders, aiding us to become substantial regional and national drivers in the application of creativity across all disciplines. One perfect example of this is the FWD project, funded by the West of England Combined Authority in partnership with Bath University, Bath College and 70+ regional employers. Another is Andy’s current major project, the foundation of the UK’s first fully integrated National Centre for Fashion and Sustainability in partnership with the lead policy organisation, the Fashion Roundtable. Driven by policy change, the Fashion industry is in the vanguard of business model transformations that leave no discipline untouched and work at all levels- curriculum, innovation, enterprise, and research. Our ambition is in partnership with Bath Fashion Museum to build something commensurate with this challenge.

Andy continues to lead the former EAU, which is now known as CIKE; the Centre for Innovation and Knowledge Exchange.