Peter Robertson
Peter Robertson

Prof Peter Robertson

Professor

 0131 455 6288

  P.Robertson@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

Pete took a degree in psychology at the University of Warwick, and then trained to be a career adviser at Bristol Polytechnic. He worked as a career adviser in Hertfordshire and North London, and specialized in supporting young people with disabilities and learning difficulties. After postgraduate training in occupational psychology at the University of East London, he became a training manager in a career guidance company. He moved to Scotland and joined the University in 2001.

Pete is the leader for the 'Global Online' Postgraduate Certificate in Career Development programme. He also teaches on the Postgraduate Diploma in Career Guidance and Development, which is our UK professional training programme. He leads modules related to career development theory, and policy.

Pete's research interests focus on several related topics:

- the links between careers, health and well-being
- unemployment and mental health
- public policy for career development
- the evaluation of career services and employment services
- the transition to adult life for disadvantaged young people
- the 'Capability Approach' of Amartya Sen
- the effective use of career information

Pete is the President of the Career Development Institute (CDI). He is a Chartered Psychologist, a Fellow of the National Institute for Career and Educational Counselling (NICEC), a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), and a member of the International Association for Educational & Vocational Guidance (IAEVG).

School

Research Groups

Themes

Research Areas

News

Events

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Member of Scottish Government Career Strategy Review Group
  • Member of QAA working group to develop the Scottish subject benchmark statement for career guidance and development
  • Member of Scottish Government working group that produced the document: "A qualifications and continuous professional development framework for the career development workforce in Scotland".
  • Member and Co-Chair of the Institute of Career Guidance (ICG) Research Committee

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Host and lead organiser of the Career Development Institute (CDI) Scotland Student Conference: Online and open to practitioners.
  • Member of the Scotland Team at the International Centre for Career Development in Public Policy (ICCDPP) international symposium at Tromso, Norway.
  • Host and lead organiser for the Joint Career Guidance Research Symposium (ENU/UWS/SDS) at Edinburgh Napier University.
  • Host and lead organiser of Career Development Institute (CDI) Scotland Student Conference at Edinburgh Napier University.
  • Chair of the symposium: Application of the Capability Approach to career guidance practice, at the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) Annual Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden.
  • Host and lead organiser of Career Development Institute (CDI) Scotland Student Conference at Edinburgh Napier University.

 

Editorial Activity

  • Lead Editor for a Special Section in the International Journal of Educational and Vocational Guidance on the Capability Approach to Career Guidance
  • Lead Editor for the Oxford Handbook of Career Development
  • Editor of the Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling
  • Publications Manager for the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (NICEC)

 

External Examining/Validations

  • External Examiner for the MSc Guidance Counselling and Lifespan Development programme at University of Limerick
  • External Examiner for the postgraduate career development programmes at Canterbury Christ Church University
  • External Examiner for the Postgraduate Diploma in Career Guidance at University of West of England

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
  • Fellow of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (NICEC)
  • Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS)
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
  • Chartered Psychologist (C.Psychol) - British Psychological Society

 

Invited Speaker

  • Connecting career development and mental health globally, and in your practice. Workshop presently jointly with David Redekopp and Michael Huston at online conference: Quariera - Le rendez-vous des professionnels en employ. Quebec, Canada.
  • Career theory: Online invited talk for postgraduate students and staff at the University of Limerick
  • Trade unions and career services - Potential partners for promoting social justice at work? Online invited talk for NICEC Webinar hosted by Manchester Metropolitan University
  • 21st Century career theory. Online presentation at the Institute of Work Psychology Conference, University of Sheffield.
  • Connecting career development and mental health for youth in school: Online invited talk, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Canada.
  • Should public health be a goal of career guidance policy? Paper presented at the lnternational Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) Annual Conference, Bratislava.
  • Career development and well-being. Keynote address at the Career Development Institute national conference, Gateshead.
  • The Capability Approach to Career Guidance. Newcastle: Association of Graduate Career Advisory Services (AGCAS) Research Conference. Repeated at the Career Development Institute Scotland Student Conference in 2020 and 2021.
  • ‘Yer jacket’s on a shoogly peg’: The challenge posed by the gig economy to concepts underpinning career learning. Presentation at International Centre for Career Education and Guidance (iCEGs) conference: ‘Imagining New Perspectives on Work- the role of career development in shaping futures’, University of Derby.
  • Mental health in the transition from youth to adulthood: The contribution of career guidance in promoting well-being. Paper presented at the Joint Career Guidance Research Symposium. Edinburgh Napier University.
  • Burning down the house: A critique of contemporary career theory. Paper presented at 19th Congress of European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology. Turin.
  • How career decisions are really made. Invited talk for Scotland's Community of Access and Participation Practitioners (SCAPP). Aberdeen.
  • Positive psychology and career guidance: Are there many roads to career happiness or just one highway? Presentation at the Association of Graduate Career Advisory Services (AGCAS) Scotland Annual Conference, Edinburgh Napier University.
  • The service users’ voice in career guidance. Workshop presented at Network for Innovation in Career Guidance and Counselling in Europe (NICE) Academy, Krakov: Jagiellonian University. Repeated at the Career Development Institute Student Conference, Edinburgh Napier University.
  • Introduction to career counselling: Invited talk to postgraduate psychotherapy/counselling students at Edinburgh University
  • The Capability Approach - from concept to practice. Symposium introduction at the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) Annual Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden.
  • The Capability Approach as a foundation for a social justice in career development. Presentation at the Network for Innovation in Career Guidance and Counselling in Europe (NICE) conference: ‘Counseling and Support for Decent Work, Equity and Inclusion’, University of Padova, Italy
  • Career capabilities in disadvantaged youth. Paper presented at International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) Annual Congress, Madrid.
  • Experiences of disabled job seekers: A qualitative study of the Remploy Work Choices Programme. Edinburgh: Presentation at joint seminar of National Institute for Career Education and Counselling/Edinburgh Napier University Employment Research Institute.
  • Career guidance, health and well-being. Presentation at the Joint Career Guidance Research Symposium. Paisley: University of the West of Scotland.
  • Career guidance, health and well-being. Paper presented at National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (NICEC) Conference: ‘Rethinking career education and guidance for a globalized world’. Derby: University of Derby.
  • Underpinning concepts for Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG). Invited talk for widening participation practitioners at Edinburgh University.
  • Recent developments in career theory. Invited talk for the Association of Graduate Career Advisory Services (AGCAS) Scottish network meeting
  • Positive psychology: What has it ever done for us? Presentation at joint career guidance research symposium. Paisley: University of the West of Scotland.
  • The well-being outcomes of employment support for job seekers with mental health conditions. Presentation at the British Psychological Society, Division of Occupational Psychology Annual Conference, Brighton.
  • Introduction to the Scottish labour market and career services. Invited talk to a delegation of senior Swedish guidance professionals (repeated).
  • Employee well-being, mental health and career guidance. Presentation at ESRC seminar: ‘Stakeholder perspectives: how employers, trades unions and human resource management professionals see the purpose and practice of careers support in work settings.’ University of Ulster, Londonderry.
  • Can career guidance make you better? Presentation at the Institute of Career Guidance (ICG) annual conference, Brighton.
  • A practitioner’s guide to research. Joint presentation with Deirdre Hughes at Institute of Career Guidance (ICG) annual conference, Glasgow.

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Affiliate Member of the Association of Graduate Career Advisory Services (AGCAS)
  • Member of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG)
  • Member of the Career Development Institute (CDI)
  • Member of the Institute of Career Guidance (ICG)
  • Member of the British Psychological Society (BPS)

 

Non-executive Directorship

  • Board Member for FEAT (Fife Employment Action Trust), a mental health charity.
  • Voluntary Director of Worktrack, a community employability agency.

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Job seekers with health conditions - Employment support and well-being. Presentation at 'Power, politics and society' Research showcase, School of Applied Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University.

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External Examiner for Ghazal Vahidi, Loughborough University - PhD thesis: Representation of Careers in British Print Media, 1985-2015
  • External Examiner for Malcolm Greig, Heriot-Watt University - PhD thesis: Factors affecting apprenticeship completion in Scotland

 

Reviewing

  • Peer review for the Journal for Specialists in Group Work
  • Peer review for Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice
  • Peer review for the International Journal of Lifelong Education
  • Peer reviews for the International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance (multiple)
  • Peer reviews for the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling (multiple)
  • Reviewer for the Institute of Career Guidance (ICG) periodical 'Constructing the Future'

 

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59 results

The impact of career guidance on the mental well-being of young people

Report
Robertson, P. (2019)
The impact of career guidance on the mental well-being of young people. Stourbridge, West Midlands: Career Development Institute
Mental health conditions have relatively early onset compared to other major disease categories, and therefore have the potential to cause distress and negative economic impac...

Building capabilities in disabled job seekers: A qualitative study of the Remploy Work Choices programme in Scotland

Journal Article
Robertson, P. J. (2018)
Building capabilities in disabled job seekers: A qualitative study of the Remploy Work Choices programme in Scotland. Social Work and Society: International Online Journal, 16(1), 1-15
This article reports on a qualitative study of the UK’s labour activation pathway for jobseekers with disabilities and health conditions. The aim was to explore the experienc...

A role for trades unions in careers education

Journal Article
Cimini, N., & Robertson, P. (2018)
A role for trades unions in careers education. Scottish Left Review, 21-21
No abstract available.

The Capability Approach - from concept to practice

Presentation / Conference
Robertson, P. (2018, October)
The Capability Approach - from concept to practice. Paper presented at Symposium at the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) Annual Conference 2018, Gotenburg, Sweden
The Capability Approach offers a fresh starting point for thinking about career guidance interventions. In contrast to most conceptual approaches in the field, it does not der...

Positive psychology and career counselling

Presentation / Conference
Robertson, P. J. (2018, October)
Positive psychology and career counselling. Paper presented at International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) Annual Conference 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden
Positive psychology has been an influential movement within psychology in the early years of the twenty-first century. This paper seeks to provide a critical and balanced asse...

A capability approach to career development: An introduction and implications for practice

Journal Article
Robertson, P. J., & Egdell, V. (2018)
A capability approach to career development: An introduction and implications for practice. Australian Journal of Career Development, 27(3), 119-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/1038416217704449
In the UK, the concept of employability is influential in current conceptualizations of career development. It is an example of a discourse underpinned by faith in individual ...

Job search information behaviours: An ego-net study of networking amongst young job-seekers

Journal Article
Mowbray, J., Hall, H., Raeside, R., & Robertson, P. J. (2018)
Job search information behaviours: An ego-net study of networking amongst young job-seekers. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 50(3), (239-253). ISSN 0961-0006
Networking is considered an integral feature of job search, yet its behavioural manifestation has received little attention in the extant literature. Here this is addressed in...

The casualties of transition: the health impact of NEET status and some approaches to managing it

Journal Article
Robertson, P. J. (2018)
The casualties of transition: the health impact of NEET status and some approaches to managing it. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 47(3), 390-402. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2018.1455168
Youth unemployment can be understood as a major public health risk. This paper explores the multidisciplinary literature in this field, and its relevance to support for NEET (...

Developing career capabilities in “NEET” young people: experiences of participants in the Prince’s Trust team programme

Journal Article
Robertson, P. J. (2018)
Developing career capabilities in “NEET” young people: experiences of participants in the Prince’s Trust team programme. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 46(6), 752-764. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2018.1434130
This qualitative study focuses on the impact of a supportive 12-week programme intended to empower young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) to purs...

Developing Career Capabilities For Young People In Transition To Adulthood

Book Chapter
Robertson, P. (2017)
Developing Career Capabilities For Young People In Transition To Adulthood. In K. Niven, S. Lewis, & C. Kagan (Eds.), Making a difference with psychology (234-240). London: Richard Benjamin Trust
This chapter provides a brief accessible outline of a research project funded by the Richard Benjamin Trust. It describes use of the 'capability approach' to understand a pro...

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