Professor David Weir
Chief Patron

Professor David Weir, in his current capacity of chief patron of Academy of Policy and Research (APR), also looks after APR journal titled ‘Academy of Policy and Research Review’ as its chief editor. He mentors the academic delivery, policy think tank and publication of APR apart from presiding over all the board meetings.

Professor Emeritus at Northumbria University, has had an extraordinarily successful academic career which has included leading four university Business Schools as the Head of the School of Business, Leadership and Enterprise at University Campus Suffolk, Director of the Bradford Management School, Head of the Glasgow University Business School, Dean and Director of the Newcastle Business School, and Dean of the Scottish Business School. He was also Chair of the Association of Business Schools (UK) and is a Visiting Professor for numerous universities including Liverpool Hope University, Lincoln University and Lancaster University. During his 25 years as a Business School Professor and Dean, David has presented and led tracks at high profile conferences at the American, British, European and Irish Academies of Management, the Academy of International Business. He has held Chairs at a number of Universities including Glasgow, Bradford, Northumbria and CERAM and Rennes in France and been a member and chair of both social science and science and engineering research council committees. He was a founding member and long-time Council Member of the British Academy of Management (BAM).

Having personally supervised over fifty successful PhD students, David has acted as doctoral examiner for such Universities as Oxford, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Durham, Newcastle, Lancaster, Mauritius and many others in the U.K. and the world. Among his former doctoral students are several Professors and Deans of Business Schools.

David initiated the very first part-time executive MBA in a University business school at Glasgow in Britain, and in each of his business schools has created strong suites of programs in the international market and developed entrepreneurship and small business support programmes, while building a doctoral and staff publication tradition.

David is an author of several books including the best-selling “Modern Britain” series and has wide ranging research interests in areas spanning from strategic management and enterprise development to risk and crisis management and management in the Arab Middle East. He writes poetry and was for several years the Poet in Residence at the Edinburgh pub in Liverpool. He won first prize for raspberry jam at the Sedbergh show in 1974. His secret sorrow is that he is a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Jeff Butel
Head - Quality, Compliance, Policy and Procedures

Jeff Butel, responsible for a host of key areas such as quality, compliance, policy and procedures at Academy of Policy and Research (APR), has well over 35 years in higher education, including teaching, internal and external examining, programme administration, programme validation, institutional accreditation and management at a senior level.

He has undertaken a wide range of consultancy work, in the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia, which includes qualitative and quantitative assessments of programmes and institutions, preparation for external validation and institutional accreditation, training and developing robust quality assurance systems and processes.

In doing so Jeff Butel has worked with institutions, governments and the United Nations. In particular, in helping institutions prepare for educational oversight, he can draw upon many years’ experience of working for QAA as a Review Coordinator and for BAC as a Reporting Inspector, involving a total of some 200 reviews/inspections.

During this long career in higher education sector Jeff Butel has worked as coordinator for UK's education oversight body QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) and reporting inspector for BAC (British Accreditation Council) by assisting them in their conduct of quality assessment reviews, developing reference points and guidance for providers and preparing comprehensive quality assurance scheme for independent further and higher education in the UK.

Professor Martin Samy
Head – Academics

Professor Martin Samy works as head of academics Academy of Policy and Research (APR).

Prior to being an academic, Martin has had commercial experience as a financial manager of corporations in Singapore and Australia. He was an associate member of the Certified Practising Accountant, Australia, and member of the Australian College of Educators. He has been recognised in the Marquis Who’s Who in the World in 2007 publication for his research in establishing a Quality Effectiveness Instrument.

His current responsibility involves managing the academic delivery of PhD programmes at School of Accounting, Finance and Economics in Leeds Beckett University, UK. His teaching focusses on research philosophy and methods. His research interests are Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance research globally, where he has undertaken studies in Australia, UK, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria. School Improvement and Effectiveness research in schools in Australia and the UK, where he measured quantitatively the perceptions of effectiveness. Through the university, he offers a consultancy service to schools.

Dr Dababrata Chowdhury
Head – Media, Comunication & Publication

Dr Dababrata Chowdhury (Daba) is an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Suffolk. He graduated in Computer Science and Engineering (BSc) from Turkey and then completed his MBA and PhD at the Plymouth University. His principal research interest is in the field of Business and Management particularly in Knowledge Transfer (KT) mechanisms in SMEs and International Business.

Daba is a co-editor of Celebration magazine introduced by the South Asian Society for the benefit of southwest community, which includes many distinguished and honourable members of the society, executives of Plymouth University and dynamic local business entrepreneurs. He is an associate editor of Challenge and Response - a Journal in Management Studies from BMA (Bangladesh Management Association) and also serves as an editorial board member/associate editor of the Journal of Global Strategic Management (JGSM).He was a member of Information Committee (IC) for World Universities Congress , in Turkey, 2010. He has presented more than twenty papers at international and five national conferences and has published six papers in international journals as well as a chapter in the book The Role of Clustering Information and Importance of Knowledge Transfer in Turkish Energy Sector (2009). He had acquired many important management and problem solving skills such as communication, team work and working under pressure. Daba can speak and communicate in English, Turkish (Turkey), Hindi (Indian), Bengali (Bangladeshi), Azeri (Azerbaijan) and Urdu (Pakistan) which equips him to undertake foreign visits involving the co-ordination of conferences especially in the regions where these language are spoken.

Daba received a University International Collaboration Research Grant for the year 2010/11 and Vice-Chancellors Community Research Awards 2011/12 from Plymouth University and is working with Plymouth University to help the community. He always enjoys teaching and can contribute towards development of national and international business and management research and consultancy work through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP).

Daba successfully completed his professional development course and received a certificate of Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) from University Plymouth. He is a member of five professional organisations, including the British Academy of Management (BAM) and The Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE). In addition, he is a visiting lecturer and PhD external for Karachi University in Pakistan, Canakkale OnsekizMart University in Turkey and Kazakh British Technical University in Kazakhstan.