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Ron is Hon. Professor of Education at the University of Stirling with a particular interest in the governance and governing of FE.

He joined Stone King as a Consultant in 2019 initially to help design a program for supported self-assessment with the shared visions of helping to make the skills sector stronger. Ron has since played a key role in developing the nationwide team of consultants, backed by the country’s only national law firm top-ranked for education and charities not solely confined to London.

Having undertaken and published a considerable number of governance research studies, one of Ron’s recent papers published in the Journal of Research in Post-Compulsory Education reported, with Joss Kang, on the use of a reflective practice methodology by college board clerks/secretaries.

Together with Dr Colin Forrest and Prof Chris James, Ron has recently published a paper considering the question of the remuneration of governors of publicly-funded education providers.

Ron was a member of a team from the universities of Stirling, Birmingham and Cardiff studying the contribution of college boards to influencing the strategic direction of colleges across the U.K. - funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, which reported in 2021.

He is also an Associate of the College Development Network (Scotland), including undertaking externally facilitated governance effectiveness reviews of the governance of some Scottish colleges during 2020/21. Ron has also undertaken a study into virtual governing for CDN/AoC, published in November 2020.

Ron is a qualified teacher and, as well as teaching, he has acted as a local authority education officer and further and higher education college vice principal.