Mrs Claire Hughes

Claire is an experienced HE Senior Leader and champions innovative education initiatives to ensure excellent student experience and positive outcomes and holds her Senior Fellow Advance HE and is a Chartered Manager Fellow (CMI).  Claire has worked in HE for 14 years and in that time has worked across both professional service roles within Quality Assurance and Partnerships along with academic roles and most recently as Head of Department Solent Business and Law Schools at Solent University during which time she was part of the senior management team who successfully were award GOLD TEF.  Across the courses that she has managed she has led the curriculum innovations, including TESTA, and these course areas have been shortlisted for awards such as the National Undergraduate Awards, CABS Small Business Charter Excellence Awards for Enterprise and Higher Education Provider of the Year Chartered Management Institute.   Claire has also worked across many university committees including being part of Professional Recognition Committee for Advance HE Fellowships, and she set up Academic Network Forums within this work too.     Claire has spoken at a variety of national conferences on curriculum innovation including WONKHE’s Expresso Education Café on the pedagogy of play.  Her research interests are centred around teaching and learning, including papers and book chapters around supporting the student experience and she is currently undertaking her Doctorate with the University of Kent’s Centre for Study of Higher Education, where she is researching students’ perceptions of skills within HE curriculum.    Claire is currently working at University of Southampton within the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP) as Principal Teaching Fellow as the Assesment Consultancy Lead as part of a University strategic major project.