Welcome to the website of
Professor David Norman Smith BA, PGCE, MA, PhD

For the record

Cometh the hour, cometh the website. Or so it seems in a digital age. But why this website in particular?

In part it is a time for reflection, a narrative of sorts, explaining the trajectory of a long career in universities and research. The aim is to provide a consolidated record of career highlights and the published peer reviewed outputs that define a contribution to new knowledge production and its impact on understanding, policy or practice in the wider world.

Whatever the status or significance of this academic career, its representation in this website is in the end a personalised account for the record of facts about trajectories and milestones in a journey through academia.

About Me

Foundations of a career

As a sixth form student in a traditional Lancashire Grammar School my academic interests crystallised around the social sciences. An ambition to pursue those interests at university was viewed without much enthusiasm by my tutors. I was left therefore to navigate my own pathway into higher education.

Some simple research uncovered a new programme of study offered by Liverpool Polytechnic. Under the auspices of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the Polytechnic was launching a new course leading to a BA in Social Studies. In a still binary higher education landscape of universities and polytechnics this, to me at least, seemed to be at the cutting edge of undergraduate inter-disciplinary study. After a first year studying all the main social sciences students progressing to years 2 and 3 could choose their specialism, history in my case, alongside an interdisciplinary study by dissertation.

I applied directly to the Polytechnic. In return I received a personal letter from the Head of Department, Eric Taplin, offering me a place. Little did I know that Eric, well known for his pioneering studies of labour history, in particular Liverpool dockers and seamen, together with other course tutors would later become colleagues when I joined the staff of lecturers specialising in social and labour history. My undergraduate and subsequent post-graduate specialisation in social and economic history accompanied by interdisciplinary study of contemporary industrial relations provided a solid and inspiring foundation for an academic career.

Postgraduate studies

Prior to graduation from the Polytechnic, I was offered a place, supported by a Research Council Studentship from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), to study for a MA in Modern Social History at Lancaster University. Postgraduate studies were led by Professor Harold Perkin and Dr (later Professor) John Walton along with several other colleagues.

Their enthusiasm and support affirmed my interest in pursuing further study in social and economic history. A second SSRC Studentship to study for a PhD followed, this time based in the Department of Economic History at the University of Liverpool and supervised by another labour and industrial relations history expert, Ron Bean.

My PhD thesis, presented and awarded without revision in 1986-87, focused on Trade unions, employers and the development of collective bargaining in the British tramway and omnibus industry 1889-1924. This was a largely unexplored field of labour history despite the industry’s scale and significance in the formation of modern structures of trade unionism, managerial strategies in relation to the labour process and the formal machinery of collective bargaining.

Post-doctoral posts

Although employed by Liverpool Polytechnic as a lecturer the post, like many others at that time, was a fixed-term contract. As completion of my PhD thesis coincided with end of contract I applied successfully for a first post-doctoral post as research assistant in an ESRC (previously SSRC) funded research study of strikes and industrial militancy in the British Coal Mining Industry.

Based at the University of East Anglia this three-year project, commencing in 1987, was led by Professor Roy Church and Dr Quentin Outram. Using innovative interdisciplinary methods and perspectives, working on this project was highly influential at a personal level as well as being highly productive in terms of publication outputs.

My work within an inter-disciplinary paradigm applied to historical studies was taken a step further in my subsequent appointment in 1990 to a Senior Research Fellowship in the Legal Research Institute, School of Law, at the University of Warwick to investigate the working world of estate agents and the ways regulation of the industry operated.

Working with Directors Professor Michael McConville and Dr Michael Clarke (University of Liverpool) a key aim of this work, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, was to establish a clearer understanding of the regulatory challenges presented by the take-over of formerly independent chains of estate agencies by financial institutions. The outcome of the research provided an input into policy through the Office for Fair Trading (OFT) as well as other interested bodies such as the National Association of Estate Agents, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the Consumers’ Association, Law Society and local Trading Standards Officers.

Having presented the final report and co-authored a draft of a book based on the Warwick research, in 1993 I moved to a new post as Senior Research Fellow (SRF) in the School of Education at the University of Leeds.

The aims for this post were to work with the then newly appointed Professor of Higher Education, Peter Scott, to develop research in the field of policy in mass higher education. Part of the role was to act as Deputy Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in Education (CPSE) taking responsibility for its programme of work, events, speakers and interactions with policy makers and decision makers at national and international levels. Alongside this I worked collaboratively with Professor Scott and other colleagues on a number of externally funded research projects investigating Access to higher education, university governance and executive leadership. The published outcomes of this programme of research are included in the complete list of publications below.

I remained in this role until the departure of Professor (later Sir) Peter Scott in 1998 to take up the role of Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University. I was subsequently promoted to Principal Research Fellow, one in a small cohort across the University of Leeds.

During this period I also worked closely with Dr Jonathan Adams, Lead Founder of Evidence Ltd, a Leeds spin-out company specialising in the application of innovative bibliometric and other analytical devices to research policy, performance and management launched in 2001. Together we established a new and highly productive university-based research entity, the Higher Education Policy Unit (HEPU).

From Leeds to Scotland

From 2009 I held the posts of Professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning (CRLL), a joint enterprise between Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of Stirling, Scotland.

My role at CRLL included a focus on developing collaborative research activity. However, there was a strong institutional and national Government interest in supporting a range of initiatives focusing on widening participation in higher education. These included the development of innovative articulation arrangements between different levels of education providers in the Greater Glasgow region. Funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC), responsibility for the strategic orientation of staff and day-to-day operational aspects of this policy initiative was located within my office as Professor and Co-Director of CRLL.

Alongside my GCU and CRLL roles I remained a continuing member of the core research team at Evidence Ltd working collaboratively on a number of inter-related projects in the field of higher education policy. My work at the University of Leeds and in Scotland included:

Securing funding for research activity in the field of higher education studies
Responsibility for developing publications comprising, books, research articles and reports at RAE/REF levels of international quality
Peer review for a range of high-quality academic journals
Work within the policy community to develop and disseminate policy relevant research based evidence
PhD research supervision
External examiner roles for post-graduate student theses
Institutional reviewer for new course developments in UK and international settings
University and faculty board member for research, knowledge transfer and academic policy
Member of UK QAA research board

My academic career was curtailed early for health-related reasons in 2014. I was subsequently awarded the title of Professor Emeritus for Research by the Senate of Glasgow Caledonian University. Health permitting, I am now pursuing writing in two fields:

A book based on my earlier PhD study under the provisional title Moving the masses, the hidden history of work, unions and employers in the early UK tramway industry, 1870-1924
With Professor Adams and other colleagues a revised and updated version of Research and Regions for publication by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).

With gratitude

My career has been enriched immensely by working in collaboration with several highly talented colleagues who have shared freely their expertise and friendship over the years. Their names will be apparent from the full list of research projects, funders and publications in the next section of this website.

Anyone requiring further information about my work and publications may contact me at the email address below. Please note that emails are monitored regularly although not on a daily basis.

D.N.Smith@gcu.ac.uk

Career Trajectory

2014 -

Glasgow Caledonian University

Professor Emeritus, Research, (confirmed by Senate 10 October 2014).

2009 - 2014

Glasgow Caledonian University

Professor of Lifelong Learning and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning (CRLL).

1993 - 2008

University of Leeds

Principal Research Fellow

Director of Higher Education Policy Unit (HEPU)

Deputy-Director Centre for Policy Studies in Education (CPSE),

Director of Knowledge Transfer, Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law

1990 -1992

University of Warwick

Senior Research Fellow, Legal Research Institute, School of Law.

1987 - 1990

University of East Anglia

Senior Research Associate

1982 - 1984

Maghull & Aintree Adult Education Centre, Liverpool

Tutor (part-time)

1982 - 1997

Liverpool Polytechnic

Lecturer, Department of Social Studies

1980 - 1982

Broughton Comprehensive School, Preston

Teacher of History

Degrees and postgraduate qualifications

1979 - 1980

Liverpool University

PhD in Economic History, SSRC Studentship

1978 - 1979

Ethel Wormald College of Education, Liverpool

PGCE in History

1976 - 1977

Lancaster University

MA in Social History, SSRC Studentship

1973 - 1976