Robert Averies

Working predominately with LITE Fellows, Robert provides training and guidance to empower successful Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects. With the role's emphasis on research impact, Robert's support is particularly relevant at the dissemination stage of LITE fellowships.

Robert’s professional background is in educational design, delivery and management in international settings. His broad English Language Teaching (ELT) experience — which culminated in his work as Director of Studies of a leading adult language centre in Rome, Italy — has provided him with rich insights into communicative and critical pedagogies, learner inclusion, cross-cultural communication, and many other SoTL-relevant areas. This saw him develop an array of participatory and learner-centred workshops, seminars and events — expertise he intends to draw upon in his role.

Through these experiences, Robert developed a passion for researching the relationship between education, the individual, and the wider social world. During his master’s in Social Development at the University of Sussex, he travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina to undertake qualitative research into how educational stakeholders across teaching and academia, curriculum design, NGOs and social movements imagine (and bring into being) a ‘transformative telos’ of education in a post-conflict setting. This experience sparked a strong personal interest in higher education as a vehicle for discovering meaning and purpose, and Robert hopes to apply this to how he works alongside LITE Fellows. 

Knowing all too well that one experience, project or interest often leads to something new, exciting and unexpected — Robert looks forward to collaborating with colleagues across disciplines and job functions, with the ultimate ambition of enhancing student education at Leeds and beyond.