Jim Gazzard

Dr James Gazzard

BSc(Hons) PhD MBA PgCert MA FHEA

Jim is the Director of Continuing Education. As the Head of the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (ICE), he leads Cambridge’s commitment to providing world-class, accessible, and affordable higher education to adults throughout their lifetime.

Jim Gazzard

Jim was appointed in April 2016 as Director of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.  As the Head of ICE, he leads over 120 full-time employees and assumes overall responsibility for the delivery of high-quality teaching to 4,000 adult students each academic year. His primary role is to develop and deliver ICE’s strategy, ensuring that Cambridge’s approach to lifelong learning is relevant and accessible to adults seeking to learn for professional development and personal enrichment. He also oversees the Madingley Hall campus, with the objective that it is widely utilised by continuing education students and the wider community for education and training.

Prior to working for the University of Cambridge, Jim held a personal Chair from 2012-2016 in Workforce Futures in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of East Anglia.  He was also an Associate Dean for Enterprise. In his roles, Jim led UEA’s partnership with the NHS to provide post-registration training for clinically qualified staff. Jim now holds an Honorary Professorship at UEA.

Previously, Jim held a Lectureship at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London. His cross-campus role focused on enterprise and work-relevant and employability-related learning e.g. ORBIS internship programme. He also played a role as Enterprise Executive, linking RVC staff and students to the London Bioscience Innovation Centre.

Earlier in his career, Jim held roles at GlaxoSmithKline (Principal Scientist: Education and Training), Cranfield School of Management (ESRC Research Fellow: High Performance Teams), and Medical Research Council Technology (Technology Transfer Manager). He maintains a broad interest in academic commercialisation, innovation in academic leadership, and workplace-relevant learning.

Jim holds undergraduate (Cardiff) and postdoctoral (Nottingham) qualifications in genetics, an MBA (Stirling) focusing on entrepreneurship, a postgraduate certificate (London) in higher education, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Research Interests

Jim’s current focus is leading the implementation of a new strategy to position the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) as a global leader in student-centred lifelong learning. This includes introducing a range of new postgraduate programmes in emerging fields, postgraduate advanced apprenticeships, novel foundation programmes including an International Pre-master’s course and enhanced study support for students accessing HE for the first time or after an extended break, and new approaches to liberal arts education. Concurrently, Jim is working to drive innovations regarding the provision of student bursaries to support widening participation, a new approach to ‘third age’ learning and many systems improvements focused on further improving the student experience of adult learners.

Jim is actively engaged in working with external partners including industry, the third sector and other education providers to ensure that the reach of lifelong learning is extended to all adults.

Jim maintains a broad scholarly interest in continuing education, work-relevant learning, employability and enterprise education.  He holds an emerging interest in global university strategy and the impact of new challenger universities and new approaches to contemporary higher education, including online learning. 

Jim is actively engaged with the University Association of Lifelong Learning (UALL) and the University and Professional Continuing Education Association (UPCEA)