Dr Doug Cole

Lead Consultant

Dr Doug Cole is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a global expert in strategic-level approaches to learning and teaching for employability and student success. Doug has over thirteen years of direct experience in leading the development of institutional-level frameworks and enhancing approaches to embedding learning for employability and student success, working with Buckinghamshire New University, Northumbria University, and Nottingham Trent University. 

In 2012, Doug first developed the concept of a national framework for embedding employability in the curriculum based on his own PhD research. In 2013, on behalf of the former Higher Education Academy, he co-authored Defining & Developing Your Approach to Employability: A Framework for Higher Education Institutions. This highly influential and still relevant publication provides scaffolding and a supporting methodology that can help any institution support all students across all subject areas in ultimately developing graduates with the qualities and capabilities crucial for success, not just in employment but in life more broadly.

Doug’s expertise is not just theoretical-he has spent over a decade testing, applying, and refining these principles in practice in a wide variety of contexts, both in the UK and beyond. Making him one of the few people globally who have experience in developing research-informed, strategic-level approaches to supporting curriculum design, quality assurance and learning and teaching for employability, across several different institutions.  

Most recently, on behalf of Tyne Coast College, he led and delivered a Department for Education-funded project to support the former North of Tyne Combined Authority LSIP, developing a bespoke essential skills framework and an aligned library of learning and teaching resources to help college tutors in addressing the needs of four regional priority industry sectors more effectively.

In his spare time, Doug serves as a governor of a local middle school and a college group in the North East of England. He is also a trustee of a new charity called Artificial Intelligence for Global Education.