The Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH) is delighted to announce the appointment of its new Deputy Director, Dr Andrew Dilley. Dr Dilley will be joining SGSAH in July 2024.

Dilley (Senior Lecturer, University of Aberdeen) takes up the role at SGSAH on a part-time secondment basis. Dilley was until recently Research Dean for Academic Research Partnerships and Research Governance at Aberdeen and is a leading historian of Britain’s global imperial and colonial engagements.

Dilley has published extensively in this field, centring on the economics and politics of the Empire and the Commonwealth in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His earlier work, including his first monograph Finance, Politics and imperialism (Palgrave, 2012), focused on the influence of British financial institutions upon colonial businesses and politics. More recently, he has turned to re-examine the wider interactions of business with economic governance of the empire and Commonwealth, kick-started by an AHRC Early Career Fellowship (2015-17). He is currently finalising a book entitled Commerce and the Commonwealth: Business Institutions, Economic Governance, and Political Culture, 1886-1975. He combines this core interest in the interplay of business and politics, with wider work on the broad sweep of British imperial history and historiography.

Dilley said of his appointment:

“The Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities has emerged over the last decade as a vital element in the academic landscape of Scotland. It has significant reach beyond the rest of the UK and across the globe. It is a privilege to advance this crucial work in the role of Deputy Director and to carry SGSAH’s work forwards amidst the rapid change across the sector. SGSAH is a crucial institution in the Scottish and indeed UK research landscapes. I relish the opportunity to support SGSAH in what will be a crucial period of change.”

As Deputy Director, Dilley will be working closely with SGSAH Director, Professor Claire Squires, to support the successful delivery of all SGSAH activities, with specific responsibility for overseeing the work of the Discipline+ Catalysts.

Squires comments:

“We’re delighted to appoint Andrew Dilley as Deputy Director at SGSAH. Andrew previously sat on SGSAH’s Executive, and so has a strong understanding of our operations and governance. We look forwards to working with him as we take forwards planning for our training and development activities over the forthcoming years.” 

Dilley joins SGSAH as successor to Professor Craig Martin (University of Edinburgh), who leaves SGSAH after 4 years. Martin joined SGSAH as its first ever Deputy Director in July 2020, and has had a long-standing involvement as co-lead of the ‘Creative Arts and Design’ Discipline+ Catalyst.

First published: 5 July 2024