Christopher Smith

Chris is a Senior Lecturer within the Department of Engineering in the School of Science and Engineering. He has a passion for work-based and lifelong learning and effective collaboration between industry, academia and society, and brings his experience and expertise to design innovative and transformative education programmes. His research focus is on models and frameworks leading to effective lifelong learning, development of skills and competences, and their evaluation.

He is actively involved in international organisations, principally:

• SEFI (European Society of Engineering Education), being a Board Member (2025-2027) and Co-Chair of the Continuing Engineering Education/Lifelong Learning Special Interest Group of SEFI (European Society of Engineering Education).

• IACEE (International Association for Continuing Engineering Education), where he is the co-Vice President for Partnerships (Europe) and a member of the Executive Council (2024-2026).

He is a recognised expert in the design of work-based programmes, having designed and delivered programmes across three continents.

Chris supervises PhD and doctoral students in the areas relating to collaborative and work-based approaches to education. He is interested in supervising students with interests in work-based and work-integrated learning, including apprenticeships, as well as innovative pedagogies to support lifelong and continuing learning.

Chris is a Chartered Engineer, Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and Senior Fellow of UK AdvanceHE/HEA. His PhD in Waveguide photonic microstructures in III-V semiconductors and post-doctoral research work at the University of Glasgow resulted in over 50 authored and co-authored journal and conference articles and one patent.

After spending nine years in industry in a range of engineering roles (across process, product, quality), ultimately as a Technical Director of a specialised electromagnetics company, he returned to academia as a Senior Lecturer in Operations Management at Coventry University. At Coventry University, Chris led several work-based programmes in manufacturing engineering and operations management for six years, including the co-design of the innovative BEng/MEng Manufacturing Engineering programme (first faculty-on-the-factory-floor programme), before joining Glasgow Caledonian University in 2015.

At Glasgow Caledonian (2015-2024) he was based at the Institute for University to Business Education and held a range of roles, principally Programme Leader - MSc Applied Learning and Management (Public Services), BSc (Hons) Railway Operations Management, MSc Railway Operations Management - and led modules around research methods, dissertation modules (honours and master's) and personal and professional development.