Biography
Dr Martin Robertson's career in academia followed his professional development and managerial experiences within the areas of conference organisation, tourism, travel and economic development (private and public sector). Martin has maintained his contact with the industry environment through Business Events and Conference Management and through Art Festival logistics and also through event resilience and leadership research. This drives his continued desire for a learning, and teaching experience - alongside subject related research, that is professionally and socially useful.
Martin’s concern for teaching and learning application and excellence has been successfully applied in his roles over the last 20 years as an academic. Most of those years have been spent in leading roles for degree programmes, both as a faculty wide Director (3 years) and for 16 years as Programme leader (PL). Currently he is PL for MSc Business Event Management(f/t) and MSc Business Event Management (Blended). In previous employment he has been, respectively, PL of BA (Hons) Event Management; PL for Bachelor of Business (BB) (Honours) & a BB Event Management suites of programmes, including BB Tourism & Event Management, & BB Music & Event Managment; PL for BA (Hons) Tourism Management and related suite of programmes, and Interim PL for BA (Hons) Festival & Leisure Management and related suite of programme.
His involvement in academic quality assurance has also seen him sit in an executive capacity on a number of related university councils (UK & Australia). He has also been an active contributor to national (Scotland) and state (Victoria, Australia) government academic quality actions, with a particular focus on the related study areas of event and tourism management. He is Adjunct Associate Professor, Institute of Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities, Victoria University, Melbourne. He is also Co-Chairperson of the Event Studies SIG for the Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE).
He is UK Regional Editor for Event Management an international peer-reviewed journal and has editorial roles in three other peer review journals. He has co-edited 6 academic journal special issues and has also co-edited 6 published books. He has over forty related articles or chapter publications.
Martin's excitement at – and involvement with - events and festivals of all types is witnessed by his recent involvement as director/ committee member of two large community Arts Festivals (one as logistics manager), and in the organisation of many conferences (in and out of academia). He has led or co-lead 10 consultations (evaluation) projects for providers of large events (arts, agriculture and sport). He has also designed and led a certificated event management training course for industry (Melbourne).