Dr Ailsa Crum

Lead Consultant

Dr Ailsa Crum is an independent HE consultant with expertise in quality frameworks, staff/student engagement and qualitative evaluation. She has 30+ years’ experience including as QAA Director of Membership, Quality Enhancement and Standards with responsibility for re-developing key sector reference points, eg the UK Quality Code 2024, subject benchmark statements, credit frameworks and External Examining principles. She led sector-wide projects on topics including student transitions, addressing awarding gaps, reassessing assessment and tackling the opportunity and challenge of generative AI. Ailsa was an architect of the Quality Enhancement Framework in Scotland, designing the Enhancement-Led Institutional Review (ELIR) method and overseeing the national Enhancement Themes relating to Student Transitions and Evidence for Enhancement with its strong focus on evaluation. 

She has decades of experience in designing and managing institutional review methods and evaluating institutions’ approaches to monitoring and review both in the UK and internationally eg chairing reviews at University of Limerick, with ENQA and engaging in projects in Ireland, Norway, New Zealand, South Africa and Chile. A lifelong champion of student engagement, she chairs the Finance and Risk Committee of the Edinburgh Napier Students’ Association (ENSA). Ailsa is a Common Purpose Global Leader, joining their deep dive to Kenya in June 2024.