All Ireland Society for Higher Education
Professor Maria Slowey is the Vice-President for Learning Innovation at Dublin City University. This post also includes the statutory function of Registrar. Prior to joining DCU in February 2003, she was Professor of Education and Director of Adult and Continuing Education at the University of Glasgow since 1992. She has held a number of key appointments in the UK and has been a member of the Continuing Education panel for the UK Research Assessment Exercise, and a member of the Cubie Committee of Inquiry on Student Finance for Scotland. She is Chair of the Research and Development Committee of the SRHE (Society for Research into Higher Education) and a member of the Research Priorities Board of the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council of the UK) and the Steering Committee of the large scale Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). Her research interests include policy issues in higher education, adult and continuing education and widening access to lifelong learning opportunities. She has co-authored a number of books including in 2003, "Higher Education and the Lifecourse" (SRHE/OUP), which focuses on the lifelong dimension, and addresses the changing nature of the student population. Another key publication "International Perspectives on Lifelong Learning" (2000, Routledge Falmer), a study co-ordinated with Professor Hans Schuetze of the University of British Columbia explores the varying interpretations of lifelong learning by experts from ten countries including Ireland.
Ronald Barnett is Professor of Higher Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. He joined the Institute in 1990. From 1994-2001, he was Dean of the Institute where his role involved the co-ordination and development of the Institute's advanced courses, the development of all quality systems, and the enhancement of learning and teaching across the Institute. Professor Barnett is also currently Chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education, Chair of the Research Degrees Committee of the University of London and Chair of the Meeting of Professors at the Institute of Education. He is widely known as an international authority on the conceptual understanding of higher education and the university. He has also acted as a consultant for most of the leading UK bodies in higher education and has published widely. His publications include two prize-winning books; "The Idea of Higher Education" and "The Limits of Competence: Knowledge, Higher Education and Society". His most recent book, published in 2003, "Beyond All Reason: Living with Ideology in the University" has been described as "a major work--provocative, unsettling and profoundly challenging" and "essential reading for all who work in universities".