Shaping the Future of Higher Education

Lesley Wood is an experienced action researcher of international repute. She has developed and conducted action research training for professional, organisational, and community development in different contexts. She is the founder Director of the research entity Community-Based Educational Research, at North-West University, and has been awarded several national and international funds for her projects. She is a National Research Foundation rated researcher. In 2014, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Moravian University in the US for her work in action research. She was inducted into the Academy of Science South Africa and the international Academy of Community-Engaged Scholarship in 2021. She has published over 100 articles, book chapters, and books, and has supervised many doctoral students.

Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt is an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University, Australia; Pro Chancellor, Global University for Lifelong Learning (GULL), USA; Extraordinary Professor at North-West University, South Africa; and Honorary Citizen of the University of Innsbruck (Austria). She has four doctoral degrees: 2 PhDs in Australia (from University of Queensland in Comparative Literature & Translation Science and from Deakin University in Higher Education), a Doctor of Letters (DLitt) in Management Education (IMCA, UK), and an Honorary Doctorate (D. Hon) in Professional Studies (GULL, USA). Ortrun has published widely and has received several national and internationally funded grants for her projects, as well as holding various honorary research and teaching appointments at international institutions at various times. Her career highlights are (1) her Festschrift, titled Lifelong action learning and action research: A tribute to the life and pioneering work of Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, edited by Kearney and Todhunter (2015), and (2) the award in 2018 of Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO), in recognition for ‘Distinguished service to tertiary education in the field of action research and learning as an academic, author and mentor, and to professional bodies’.