Professor Richard Morris (Chairman)

Richard Morris directs the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, where he is Professor for Research in the Historic Environment. In parallel, he works as a freelance writer, with a particular emphasis on aviation history. He was Director of the Council for British Archaeology from 1991 to 1999, having earlier worked as a university teacher and Research Officer for the CBA. His interests in churches, settlement, historical topography, cultural history and aviation are reflected in essays, chapters, articles and books.  He is  Chairman of of Bede's World  and The Blackden Trust, and  a former Trustee of the National Coal Mining Museum for England.

Professor Chris Baines

Professor Baines is an independent environmental adviser and an award winning writer and broadcaster.  He is a consultant to senior executives in the corporate and voluntary sectors and in central and local government, and he also writes for a number of popular magazines.  He works from home in inner city Wolverhampton.

Chris trained as a horticulturist and landscape architect and taught landscape design and management at post graduate level until 1998, when he was awarded an honorary personal professorship by The City of Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University).  He is an honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) and also of the Institute for Leisure and Amenity Management (ILAM) and he sits on the steering committee of the Government’s urban greenspace advisory body, CABE Space. He is also a member of the BBC Breathing Places steering committee and CABE’s Strategic Urban Design think tank.

He holds non-executive posts with a number of national charities and is best known as a partnership broker, a conference speaker and a champion for access to nature and for sustainable development.  From 1998 until 2004 he was a trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Alan Baxter

Alan Baxter trained as an Engineer. He is the Senior Partner of Alan Baxter & Associates which is a 150 strong practice of Engineers, Architects and Building Historians, Archaeologists, Landscape Designers and others which seek to integrate the thinking behind the design and care of the built and natural environment. This holistic approach is focused especially on the interaction of conservation and new development and their role in creating good urbanism.

Dr Roger Clarke

Dr Clarke has a lifetime’s interest in the relationship between people and the environment, and in the search for sustainable patterns of living. He was CEO at the Youth Hostels Association from 2000-2008. He was Policy Director at the Countryside Agency from 1984-1999. He is just completing a term as a non-executive Board member at Natural England, the government’s natural environment conservation agency. Before that, he served as a Council member at English Nature. He has recently become chair of Development Education Association which promotes learning for a just and sustainable world, working mainly with schools and youth organisations. He joins the Trustee Board at British Trust for Conservation Volunteers in 2009. He is a Board member at Woodbrooke, the Quaker study centre in Birmingham.

Roger has a first class honours degree in geography from Oxford University and a PhD from McGill University, Montreal. He is married with two sons and lives in Derbyshire. His interests include gardening, running, music, and travel.

Dr Susan Davies

Dr Davies has recently retired after long service as a specialist lecture in ‘Palaeography and Diplomatic’ at Aberystwyth University, with particular responsibility for training of postgraduate students of Archive Administration but also postgraduates in History who required manuscript skills and training in locating and using archival sources.  Her teaching experience has ranged from doctoral students in Humanities subjects throughout Wales and beyond to many groups of informal learners all of whom have shared a common desire to acquire the necessary skills to use manuscript archival sources for their various interests.

After a first degree in History, a Diploma in Palaeography and Archive Administration and a PhD in medieval ecclesiastical History, she began her main teaching career in 1979, also serving periods of time as Director of the well-known Archives and Records Management programmes at Aberystwyth, which is based in the Department of Information (& Library) Studies, and developing an MA in Heritage studies in the Department of History & Welsh History.  She preferred working on a half time contract (divided between the two departments!) which allowed flexibility for  caring duties, but this arrangement also allowed scope for public service with a range of organisations in the heritage sector, thus building expertise at policy and strategic level and experience of cross-sectoral issues and cross-cutting activities.

These external activities have included Trusteeship of the National Museum of Wales (1994-2007, including five years as Vice- President); membership of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, representing Wales (1995-2003); membership of the Advisory Council for CyMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales (2004-) and of the Advisory Body for the National Library of Wales (2006-).  She is also a member of the Peer Review College for the Arts and Humanities Research Council and adviser to various projects, some of which are pursuing advanced academic research while others are innovative projects to record and make available sources of information for community history and heritage which are either inaccessible or unrecorded and at risk of being lost.

Dr Jemima Fraser

Dr Fraser is leading the £7.3m exhibitions for the £46.4m capital project to refurbish the Royal Museum in the National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh. She has managed a variety of large Scale exhibition projects, is experienced in securing grants through funding bids and was formerly Head of Education at the National Museums Scotland and before that at Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Glasgow.  She has worked as a consultant for DCMS Challenge Fund, Renaissance in the Region and the Clore Foundation. Her main research interests are in the field of visitor studies and she is interested in applying theory to practice.  She is a Fellow of the Museums Association and is a founder member of the Capital Projects Network Group, which promotes the sharing of good practice in capital projects in museums

Sarah Gaventa

Sarah Gaventa is the Director of Cabe Space the specialist unit within the Commission of Architecture and the Built Environment that promotes the design and management of public space. Previously to Cabe she ran Scarlet Projects a contemporary curating consultancy specialising in architecture and design. She is a founder Committee member of the London Festival of Architecture and is author of books on design including New Public Spaces and Concrete Design both for Mitchell Beazley. She sits on English Heritage’s Historic Parks and Gardens Panel. Sarah also writes and presents architecture and design programmes for Channel 4 and Radio 4. The latest being a programme celebrating the architectural heritage of Liverpool to be shown on Channel 4 to coincide with the Stirling prize. Sarah studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and University College London and has a Masters Degree in Design History from the Royal College of Art (joint course with the V&A Museum). Sarah collects early books on architecture and design, ancient pieces of concrete, Victorian ecclesiastical antiques, as well as the graphic work of Edward Bawden.   

Patricia Lankester

Patricia Lankester is an educationalist who works independently in the areas of the arts, heritage and grant making. She taught humanities subjects in North London comprehensive schools for 8 years and for 2 years in an American community college. She also worked in the American heritage world. She was the first National Trust Head of Education, tasked to establish and run its department across the UK. Thereafter she became Director of the Paul Hamlyn grant making foundation with its emphasis on working to combat disadvantage through arts, education and social justice projects, and effective partnerships. She is a trustee of various charitable organisations, including the Tate, the National Gallery and the Sage Music Centre, and is professional adviser to a number of grant making bodies and charities.

Dr Alison Millward

Dr Millward is Director of Alison Millward Associates Ltd, is an environmental consultant specialising in the strategic development of the environmental sector, quantitative and qualitative evaluations of environmental agencies and funding initiatives, access and audience development planning, community involvement, volunteering, facilitation, and resolving conflicts on controversial environmental issues.

In 2000, Alison joined HLF’s Historic Buildings and Land Panel, and since then has provided advice on the development of the Landscape Partnership Scheme, and assessed and monitored more than 50 natural landscape, park restoration, nature conservation and other green space related projects for HLF.  Her publications include ‘Wild Life’ for HLF and ‘Child’s Play’ for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Chartered Institute of Housing.

From 1997-1999 Alison served on the Government’s New Deal Task Force, helping to promote Welfare to Work programmes within the environmental sector.  In a voluntary capacity, Alison has been a national and local board member of a variety of environmental non governmental organisations including Groundwork and the Wildlife Trusts. She currently sits on the UNESCO UK Man and Biosphere Urban Forum and chairs the People and Wildlife Committee of the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust.  For nine years she ran an environmental youth group for 6-12 year olds and currently contributes to her local community’s Regeneration Group and the award winning Moseley in Bloom initiative.

Dr Mike Phillips

Dr Phillips was Cross Cultural Curator at the Tate Galleries in the UK, and continues to work with Tate as Cross Cultural Consultant, and as a leading investigator in the Tate research programme Tate Encounters (“Britishness and the visual culture”).   Among his recent exhibitions at Tate, are “Seeing Africa”, and “Blake and the Radical Mind”. 

As an independent curator, he has worked for most of the important cultural institutions in the UK, including major websites for the British Library and the National Archive, and in 2007 he curated an exhibition of prisoners’ art for the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) together with the artist, Grayson Perry.  Currently, he is also consultant to various cultural institutions in Europe, and together with the European Cultural Foundation he has instituted a new award for cultural diversity in Europe.