Professor Richard James was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Undergraduate) and Deputy Provost & a Co-Director of the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education. He holds a Chair in Higher Education and is a prominent researcher, commentator on higher education policy in Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders. He is a member of the national Higher Education Standards Panel (HESP). His research interests include studies of aspects of teaching and learning, including the assessment of student learning, the influences of disciplines of approaches to teaching, the teaching-research nexus and peer review of teaching. With CSHE colleagues he developed the framework, criteria and guidelines for the Australian Awards for University Teaching program of the then Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC).