My main research interests focus on policy in and leadership, governance and management of higher education;  doctoral education; the changing purposes and roles of universities; public service organizations, leadership and change agency; inequality in educational settings; notions of public good in HE settings.  This work draws on  organisational theory, feminist theory, policy analysis, new managerialism and comparative social science. 

I have been a member of 3 UK Research Assessment Exercise Sub-Panels on Education (1996, 2001, 2008).  I am an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences (since 2006) and am also an Honorary Fellow of the Society for Research into Higher Education (since 2009). I was appointed OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2013 and received an Honorary DLitt from the University of Leicester in 2014.  I am a co-editor of Higher Education (Springer) since 2013.  I am a member of the Peer Review College of the European Science Foundation and a co-convenor of the Higher Education Network in the European Educational Rearch Association.  From 2015 to 2018 I was the first woman to chair the UK Council for Graduate Education.   I am on the Editorial Board of Higher Education Quarterly and Studies in Higher Education.