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Professor Murray Saunders

Professor

Degree: PhD Curriculum and Social Change

Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation, Centre for Social Justice and Wellbeing in Education, Lancaster Literacy Research Centre

Research Interests

Director of CSET, (Centre for the Study of Education and Training, Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University) and Chair of Evaluation in Education and Work. I have acted as a consultant to, and undertaken a wide range of evaluation projects for, the British Council, DfES [Department for Education and Skills], DFID [Department for International Development], ESRC [The Education and Social Research Council], HEFCE [Higher Education Funding Council] and a variety of regional agencies. I have carried out evaluation and research projects in a wide range of cultural contexts, including in Asia: China, Japan, Singapore and India; in Africa: Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia; in Latin America: Mexico and Chile: In the Middle East: Jordan as well as other member states of the EU and Russia.

I enjoy promoting and developing evaluation practice as past president and Council member of the UK Evaluation Society, Board member of the European Evaluation Society, chair of the co-ordinating committee for the establishment of the IOCE [International Organisation for Cooperation in Evaluation] and I am associate editor of the only international multidisciplinary academic journal in the field - Evaluation. I have worked closely with local and programme evaluations nationally and internationally on the TVEI, DELTA, SOCRATES and Education Action Zone initiatives, mainly associated with informal learning.

Currently I am working on the PALETTE project which is a EU funded initiative working on learning support for different kinds of community of practice. I have co-directed the LTSN [Learning and Teaching Support Network] evaluation in the UK, the first phase evaluation of which was completed in December 2002. Currently, I am Co-Director of the SFC [Scottish Funding Council] funded evaluation of the new Scottish HE Quality Enhancement Policy and directing the evaluation of Edinburgh's Literacies Project [CLAN]. Recently along with colleagues in CSET, I am also involved in the evaluation of the UK's 'Skills for Life' policy.

I am currently undertaking support work in the area of evaluation for the HE Academy as part of the Change Academy and as part of the CETL (Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) policy.

Research programme during the last 6 years

Director of the British Council Evaluation Development Project [Case studies of Hong Kong, Ghana and Poland] funded by the British Council £19,000 1997

Also for BC -

Evaluation of Designing, shopping Eating Project Hong Kong 1998.

Evaluation design and planning, Ghana, Poland and Hong Kong 1999.

Evaluation of Creative Industries Export Promotion, Singapore, Japan 2000.

Evaluation Capacity Building in HE, Ethiopia 2000.

Evaluation Children's Rights Mexico 2001.

Evaluation Governance Interventions Chile, 2001.

Evaluation Design for the Education Support Project UNWRA, Jordan 2001-on-going.

Evaluation capacity building English Peace Keeping Project 2001

Director of the King's Fund Management Development Evaluation ProgrammeFunded by the King's Fund £29,000 1997

Co Director of the HEINE Project: Government intervention in Higher EducationFunded by TSER [EU] £120,000 1997

Co-Director of the Cumbrian Small Schools Research Support Project Cumbrian LEA £6000 1998

Director of the Equam Project [Quality and Environmental Management Project] under the Leonardo Initiative Funded by the EU £12000 1998

Director of the Learnett Project under the Socrates InitiativeFunded by the EU £12000 1998

Director of the Evaluation of Education Action Zone: Barrow2000-2005 £100,000

Director of the World Challenge Evaluation 2000-2002 Funded by World Challenge £25000

Director of the RECRE@SUP project on innovations in HE2001-2002 Funded by Socrates [EU] £12000

Director of the Evaluation of the EQUEL project 2002-2004 Funded by the EU

Co proposer and manager of the LTSN National Evaluation 2001-2002 Funded by HEFC £200,000

Co-director of the LTSN second phase evaluation 2004 Funded by HEFC £50000

Consultant to the Subject Centre Review Committee 2004 Funded by HEFC

Co-Director of the SHEFC Quality Enhancement Framework Evaluation 2003-2006 £300,000

Co-Director of the Skills for Life evaluation of the Learner's Experience, 2003-2006, £391,000

Co-Director of the ELAC project: evaluation capacity building 2004-2006, £40000

Director of the KTP project on partnership learning 2004-2007, £135000

Some key publications over the last 6 years:

Helsby G, Knight P and Saunders M [1999] Preparing Students for the New Work Order: the Case of Advanced General Vocational Qualifications British Education Research Journal Vol 24, No1 pp 63-79

Knight P, Helsby G and Saunders M [1999] Independence and Prescription in Learning: Researching the Paradox of Advanced General Vocational Qualifications British Journal of Education Studies Vol 46 No1 pp 46-58

Saunders M [1999] Organisational culture and the use of electronic support for occupational learning in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Vol 14 no2 pp 36-51

Saunders M and Machel J [2000] Quality, Qualifications and the attribution of value in work based learning in Quality Management and Qualification Needs Koper J and Zaremba H J [Physica Verlag Heidelburg] pp227-242

Bonamy J., Charlier B., Saunders M., [2001], Producing quality in diversity: how a training network elaborates its quality system, Education Permanente, n° 147, 2001-2, p.131-139

Charlier B., Bonamy J., Saunders M., [2002], Understanding innovation (Chap. 2) in : Charlier B., Peraya D., 2002, Understanding educational technologies: analyses of cases, theories of reference, guides for action [De Boeck], pp.45-67

Saunders M, Joel Bonamy and Bernadette Charlier (2004) The evaluative research of complex projects in e-learning: the case of the 'EQUEL' (e-quality in e-learning) project. Published in the proceedings of the Networked Learning Conference 2004 eds Sheena Banks et al ISBN:1-86220-150-1 pp 733-745

Saunders M (2004) Do we hear the voices? The 'presence' of evaluation theory and practice in social development, Keynote Address AES International Conference Adelaide South Australia13-15th October 2004 published in Evaluation: the International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 2005 Volume 12, Number 2, April 2006 pp 251-263

Saunders M (2009) The Scottish way: a distinctive approach to enhancement: introduction in Enhancing Learning, Teaching, Assessment and Curriculum in Higher Education: Theory, Cases, Practices. Buckingham: Open University Press. Pp 57-63

Saunders M (2009) Commentary on the Scottish way: a distinctive approach to enhancement: introduction in Enhancing Learning, Teaching, Assessment and Curriculum in Higher Education: Theory, Cases, Practices. Buckingham: Open University Press. Pp 93-103

Recent Keynote Presentations

1. Lisbon conference on Evaluation and social capital building: conference leader and designer (800 participants, Lisbon October 4th 2008)

2. Keynote at the Evaluation capacity building on 'Use and usability of evaluation outputs' (CEPA, Leicester 28thOct 2008)

3. UK CETL Evaluation Framework Consultation (28 July 2009) National College for School Leadership: keynote 'How do we know CETL outputs have effects?'

4. Keynote at the Evaluation capacity building on 'Use and usability of evaluation outputs' (CLIP, London 4th November 2008)

5. Speaker at High Level seminar on change in HE Teaching and Learning (Sydney Australia 4/5th December 2008)

6. Keynote at the SHEEC conference on outputs from QEF evaluation (Edinburgh 23rd January)

7. Keynote at the Pedagogic Research Workshop De Montfort University (11th March 2009)

8. Keynote at Norwegian Evaluation Society Launch: 'Trends in European Evaluation' (Oslo 27th May 2009)

9. Main speaker and designer of the Fribourg International Seminar on evaluative practice in Higher Education (Fribourg 4/5th June 2009)

10. Keynote at Critical Voices in Critical Times, ECE International Conference: 'Changing practice in HE: national policies, enhancement cultures and personal impetus' (Manchester 16th September 2009)

11. Keynote at Network of Evaluation Societies of Europe meeting in Muenster, Germany 8th October 2009): 'Building Evaluation expertise in Europe'

12. Keynote at launch of Slovak Evaluation Society: 'Trends in European Evaluation' (Bratislava 22nd October 2009)

13. Keynote at Romanian Evaluation Society Eastern European regional symposium; 'Using RUFDATA to plan usable evaluation outputs' (Bucharest (26th November 2009)

14. Keynote at 6th European Conference on Evaluation of Cohesion Policy: New methods for cohesion policy evaluation: promoting accountability and learning. "Capturing Effects of interventions, policies and programmes" (Warsaw 1st December 2009)

15.Keynote address to Ministry Of Finance Portugal: 'Evaluation and good Governance - Models and practice Conference' "Evaluation as a means for good governance" (Lisbon, 12th March 2010)

Potential Doctoral Proposals

• Educational policy implementation and change;
• Work and the curriculum;
• National and international policy evaluation, evaluation theory and method, evaluation of complex change processes e.g. e-learning.
• Informal learning in communities,

Career details

I have directed or co-directed some 40 separate evaluation and research projects over the last 20 years in areas of change, policy and strategic development and vocational education. In the HE environment I have worked (as both evaluator and developer) on six R&D projects which have tested various types of learning support in international consortia of HEIs [Higher Education Institutions].

I was Head of the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University from 1997-2000. I currently hold visiting professorship in Evaluation at Freibourg University, Switzerland.

Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database

Murray Saunders has 16 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk

Associated Keywords: Change, Development, Education, Evaluation, Higher education HE, Higher education policy, Policy, Training

View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Murray Saunders.

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