Elaine Collinson PhD, MPhil, SFHEA

Bio

Elaine is an Associate Professor in the Marketing & Operations Department in Edinburgh Business School in the School of Social Sciences at Heriot-Watt University. She is Head of Academic Quality for Edinburgh Business School, responsbile for QAA Reviews of the academic disciplines. With over 30 years’ experience in the Higher Education sector, she has held a series of roles, primarily in an academic and research capacity but also in developing transnational education and industry links across the globe.

Her research interests include Marketing, Small Firms, Entrepreneurship, Branding & Strategy. She was involved in the Scale Up Initiative - a collaboration across 14 Scottish HEIs to enable SME scale up and develop innovative programmes to support firm growth. She has undertaken a wide range of project based learning activities, working with Virgin Money to offer their Greenhouse Programme to PG Marketing students, enabling them to work with companies to support their strategy development.

Elaine’s areas of expertise include Marketing in the Small Business sector, where she has taught extensively in industry and academia. She has delivered in company training programmes to enable growth, support innovation and development and one to one managerial coaching. She has a wide network of business contacts across the economic development agencies and actively works with Scottish Enterprise, Interface and EDAS to name but a few.

Core areas of both teaching and research interests include Strategic Marketing Management, Marketing for Small Businesses, Entrepreneurial Marketing, Inter-cultural Business Relationships and the Marketing of Education.

Her core interests link into the concept of Engagement, be it in the knowledge transfer aspect between industry and academia or between academia and students. She has developed a series of Learning Journeys for students throughout her career, enabling students access to real life experiences to enhance their employability skills. Transformative learning is fundamental to her teaching.

in an earlier role at Heriot-Watt University, she was Director of  in Postgraduate Studies and actively involved in developing an innovative suite of MSc programmes across our international campuses. Developing innovative approaches to high quality learning has always been a key focus of her activities for both the executive education participant as well as the full time student. Experienced in international assurance of learning practices working with EFMD, QAA, AMBA, ELIR, AACSB and international partners across the globe, ensures her teaching in the area of Marketing is global in outlook and practical in application.

Previously as Director of Corporate Executive Development, she developed a suite of executive education programmes and innovative industry focused events, enabling academic engagement with the wider business community and enhancement of graduates’ employability skills.

Head of Academic Quality, Edinburgh Business School

Entrepreneurial Marketing

Strategic Marketing

The SME Sector

Industry / Academic Collaboration - Business Engagement

Marketing in the Tourism Sector

Marketing

International Education

Business Engagement

Entrepreneurship