We are delighted to announce that Douglas Blackstock has been appointed as the new Chair of the sparqs Trustee Board. Douglas is the successor to Sir Andrew Cubie, who has held the post for the last seven years. We are very grateful to Sir Andrew for the induction and handover planned in the lead up to Douglas formally taking up post later in the year.
Douglas brings extensive leadership experience from across higher education quality assurance, regulation and governance. He is former Chief Executive of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), where he led major reform across all four nations of the UK and strengthened student engagement in quality assurance. Since then, he has continued to contribute internationally as President of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), alongside a range of non-executive and committee roles including Qualifications Wales and university governing bodies.
Following his appointment, Douglas said:
“As an organisation that puts students at the heart of shaping their own learning and quality of provision, sparqs is one of the key bodies supporting tertiary education in Scotland. I have followed the work of sparqs since its foundation and so I’m delighted that the Board have put their trust in me to be the next Chair of sparqs.”
We look forward to welcoming Douglas to his first Trustee Board meeting later this year, at which we will also bid a fond farewell to Sir Andrew.
Sir Andrew has been an outstanding Chair and a tremendous support to sparqs. He will be a hard act to follow, and we are grateful for his leadership and commitment. We are confident Douglas will build on this strong foundation and be an excellent Chair for sparqs.