Department of English
Robert works on understanding and defining the discipline of English, on contemporary fiction and philosophy, and on the memory of the Holocaust. He is the author of eight books and the editor or co-editor of a further ten.
He speaks regularly for teacher organisations and has written for, and been interviewed by, the educational, national and international press on matters to do with English in schools and Universities and about his other research.
He is the English Associations’ Lead for Cross Sector Educational Policy and chairs the Common English Forum. He also co-founded The British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies, a scholarly association that brings together academics and practitioners from across the UK and beyond. He has spoken at many Literary Festivals and on Radio 4.
Robert was a Research Excellence Framework (REF) panellist in 2021, and will be for REEF 2029, as well as being a panel member for the Hong Kong Research Assessment Exercise in 2026.
Robert has advised for several organisations, including:
- Department for Education
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
- Quality Assurance Agency
- OfQual
- OfSted
- Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority
- British Council
- All the English and Welsh Awarding Bodies (Pearson, OCR, AQA, EdExcel, WJEC)
