Professor Patrick McGhee

Professor Patrick McGhee is a Chartered Psychologist, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a UK National Teaching Fellow and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is currently Assistant Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton with responsibility for research and for academic qualty. 

He has a First Class Honours Degree from the University of Glasgow and a PhD from Oxford University. He has completed CPD programmes in Executive Leadership at Ashridge and at Harvard Business School. He also has a Certificate in International Auditing from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). He was a non-executive director at the Office of the Northamptonshire Police and Crime Commissioner.  

Following an initial period working in the NHS as a Research Fellow in Psychiatry and Psychology, he has been Dean, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor at some of the largest and most socially diverse universities in the UK. He is a well-known advocate for inclusive and progressive higher education, a newspaper columnist for The Guardian, and for BBC News and a regular social media commentator. Amongst a range of non-executive and Trustee roles, he has been Chair of Westlakes Research Ltd, President and Chair of the Board of Million+, the Higher Education Think Tank; a Member of Universities UK Main Board and International Committee; a Member of the HE Advisory Panel to the Sector Skills Council for Lifelong Learning and a Member of the Further Education and Skills Ministerial Advisory Panel. He was a Member of Teaching Quality Student Experience Board of the HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) for six years, and Chair of the HEFCE Teaching Funding Advisory Committee.  He is currently a Board Member on behalf of the University of Bolton at KCMC (Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry).

He has given evidence to HE Commissions and to the Lords EU Select Committee on Social Policy and Consumer Protection. He has been involved in developing international partnerships over the last 20 years in Brazil, India, Russia, China, Malaysia, Japan, Brussels/EU, USA, Mexico and Morocco amongst others. 

He is the author of many academic articles, chapters, books and edited collections, including The Academic Quality Handbook. London: Kogan Page and Thinking Psychologically. London: Macmillan Press/Palgrave. He has been a reviewer for the British Journal of Psychology, The British Journal of Social Psychology, JSPR, the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour and several others. 

He has taught, researched or practised in psychology and therapy for 30 years. His first post was a Research Fellow in Psychiatry and Psychology at St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London. He is the author of Thinking Psychologically (Palgrave) and co-editor of Accounting for Relationships (Methuen). He currently works in private CBT practice in Greater Manchester and Lancashire. He has full accreditation from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies.