Paul is Associate Professor in Public Engagement at UWE and director of the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement. It was set up on 2008 as part of the Beacons for Public Engagement project, which involved six HE-based projects piloting innovative approaches to involving the public in their work. The NCCPE’s role is to help to coordinate public engagement practice and to support innovation and strategic change in HEIs.

Paul’s whole career has been education related. He trained as a secondary English teacher and after teaching for five years, joined the BBC where his credits include the long running BBC2 series, ‘Rough Science’. He was an executive producer in BBC Learning, responsible for a number of broadcast-led public engagement campaigns, including the People’s War project, gathering tens of thousands personal reminiscences about WWII into an online archive. He is chair of the National Trust’s advisory panel on Learning and Engagement.