Sara de Freitas
Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) at University of Cumbria, Executive Consultant and Former Deputy Vice Chancellor, UK
I am an eminent educator with twenty-five years in higher education: building extensive national and international networks, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the sector and leading on university-wide programmes of portfolio and curriculum development, organizational transformation, strategic planning and global engagement.
As an entrepreneurial leader, I have been an attractor for significant inward and external investment supporting infrastructure development, education improvements impacting ~95,000 students and promoting academic development for over 3,000 academic and professional staff in Australia and the UK. I have led on ten cross-university initiatives, including: three major curriculum and portfolio development programmes, transnational, blended learning and infrastructural education programmes operating with large capital (< $40,000,000) and revenue budgets (< $5,000,000).
I have held responsibility up to Deputy Vice Chancellor level for portfolio areas including education and student support, and as a Director of Research raising over £5,000,000 in applied research, development and innovation funding through 56 projects and programmes, supporting numerous UK businesses, changing policy and delivering regional growth and research advance. Career highlights include: making gains of 8% in student retention and raising $7,300,000 in revenue from targeted learning interventions.
My frameworks, case studies, models and academic work are captured in seven books and over 200 conference papers and journal articles, garnering 8,000 citations (44H index). My most recent book: Education in Computer Generated Environments came into paperback in 2017 and was published in the Routledge Research in Education series, outlining a ‘new learning’ paradigm.
Currently, I am advising internationally-leading educational institutions and agencies as an Executive Consultant, supporting EdTech start-ups as a Board Advisor and continuing to develop internationally-leading research as an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of London (Birkbeck).