This Collaborative Enhancement Project seeks to build a collaborative network that supports higher education institutions (HEIs) and QAA members in adopting integrated programme assessment (IPA) approaches.
Project Lead: University of South Wales
About this project
The Integrated Programme Assessment (IPA) Network (IPA Net UK) and the QAA are working in collaboration to develop a UK-wide community of practice around novel, integrated assessment strategies.
The project aims to extend and enhance the existing work on integrative programme assessment (IPA) conducted over the last 10 years by the PASS project at the University of Bradford, by Biosciences at Brunel University and more recently at other institutions like the Universities of Leeds and Bristol. By leveraging the knowledge and experience of stakeholders already involved in IPA, we seek to build a collaborative network that supports higher education institutions (HEIs) and QAA members in adopting IPA approaches.
Planned project activities include:
Stage one
- Establishing the IPAN network through JISC mailing list
- A review of existing Integrated Programme Assessment resources
- The development of new resources including a suite of case studies
- A literature review of existing practice in the sector and a series of interviews/focus groups
Stage two
- Delivery of an institutional ready assessment mapping tool
- Complete suite of case studies/resources
- A conference to share the outputs of the project and to bring QAA members and sector practitioners together to share practice
Lead institution
- Ryan James, University of South Wales
- Mark Davies, University of South Wales
Partner institutions:
- Pam Birtill, University of Leeds
- Professor Peter Hartley, Edge Hill University
- Professor Steve Rutherford, Cardiff University
- David Tree, Brunel University
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Associate Professor Mark Davies
Mark Davies, Associate Professor, University of South Wales. Project lead for the QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project on Integrated Programme Assessment (IPA). Mark is working with colleagues across the UK to build the IPA Network, developing tools, resources and research that promote integrated, programme-level assessment strategies.
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Ryan James
Ryan James is a Quality and Academic Manager at the University of South Wales and Project Manager for the QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project on Integrated Programme Assessment (IPA). He is working with colleagues across UK Universities to build the IPA Network in collaboration with the QAA, developing tools, resources and research that promote integrated, programme-level assessment strategies.
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Associate Professor Pam Birtill
Pam Birtill is Professor of the Psychology of Learning at University of Leeds, UK, where she also serves as Institutional Academic Lead for Assessment and Feedback. She studied Natural Sciences at King’s College, Cambridge, specialising in psychology, before completing her doctoral research in Psychology at the University of York, where she investigated the neural mechanisms of reward learning. She joined the University of Leeds in 2003 as a lecturer and was appointed Professor in 2025.
Her research spans both behavioural science and educational practice. Earlier in her career, she focused on associative learning and eating behaviour, particularly food preferences in children. More recently, her work has centred on higher education, with particular interests in assessment and feedback, inclusive practice, student belonging and global citizenship. In her current leadership role, she works across the institution to shape policy and practice in assessment, build capacity through networks and training, and promote fair, transparent, and inclusive assessment strategies. She has received national recognition for her contributions to education, including a National Teaching Fellowship in 2024.
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Professor Peter Hartley
eter Hartley is now Higher Education Consultant, and Visiting Professor at Edge Hill University, following previous full-time roles as Professor of Education Development at the University of Bradford and Professor of Communication at Sheffield Hallam University. As a National Teaching Fellow since 2000, he has promoted new technology in education and developed software applications. Recently he has focused on applications and implications of Generative AI, co-delivering keynotes and webinars, and co-editing/contributing to the SEDA/Routledge publication Using Generative AI Effectively in Higher Education (2024; paperback edition 2025). He has also published several guides and textbooks for students (e.g. co-author of Success in Groupwork 2nd Edn ). Other recent and ongoing work includes: assessment strategies (e.g. taking forward ideas from the PASS project which he led at Bradford); concept mapping and visual thinking; and developments in human communication (e.g. co-author of the third edition of Professional and Business Communication, Routledge, 2023).
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Professor Steve Rutherford
Steve Rutherford is a Professor of Bioscience Education at Cardiff University. Steve joined Cardiff in 2005, having undertaken his BSc and PhD in Biology at the University of York, followed by post-doctoral research in the USA and the University of Oxford. Steve is currently the Head of the Education Division in the School of Biosciences, supporting scholarship and professional development of learning and teaching. Steve has a Masters in Education and gained an Ed.D in 2019. He was awarded a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship in 2016 and is an HEA Principal Fellow, and was promoted to Professor in 2018. Steve was Cardiff University’s Academic Lead for education-related professional development from 2019-2022.
From 2020-2023, Steve led the ‘EAT-Erasmus’ project, an Erasmus+ funded collaborative projects across five European institutions aimed at enhancing assessment practices and developing resources for student and educators. In particular the EAT-Erasmus project, and others, have focused on the potential of assessment design to support self-regulated learning and assessment as learning. Steve’s main research and scholarship interests are the development of self-regulated learning; the formation of peer-support networks among students; student experiences of the transition to university; and the role of assessment in student learning.
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Professor David Tree
David has been obsessed with assessment strategies since 2011 when he redesigned the FHEQ Level 5 assessments on the Biomedical Sciences BSc at Brunel using Integrated Programme Assessment (IPA). David took care to make sure all assignments explicitly linked to the assessments in the previous and subsequent years. Back then he didn’t know there was pedagogy and fancy terms for this, he just thought all programmes of study did this. In 2016 the team David co-led won an Advance HE Collaborative Award in Teaching Excellence (CATE) for IPA and since then David has talked to hundreds of people from all over the world about integrated, synoptic and authentic assessments. In 2018 David developed synoptic, sustainable assessments on the new Life Sciences BSc at Brunel and won the Biochemical Society Established Educator of the Year for this and other work in 2024. Now as Vice-Dean Education for the College of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences at Brunel he leads transformative changes in pedagogy that prioritize active learning and sustainable, authentic assessment strategies, improving outcomes for students.