Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope is Provost and Professor of Education at Plymouth Marjon University. In 2018 she developed and opened Marjon University Cornwall based in Truro, which she leads. Tanya is a committed and enthusiastic educationalist with over three decades of cross sector experience (FE, school and HE) in teaching, teacher education and educational leadership. An innovative academic, Tanya has maintained scholarly engagement in educational improvement and effectiveness throughout her career. Her commitment to championing the importance of, and developing new ways of thinking about, learning and teaching was recognised when she was awarded Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2014, the National Enterprise Educator Award in 2014 and nominated for the concept of Educational Isolation for the Grawmeyer Award in Education in 2019.

Tanya’s research focuses on identifying and finding solutions for inequity in education. Her current research explores the complexity of Educational Isolation and the effect of this on school experience and improvement for coastal, rural and small schools in England. The findings have highlighted particular issues, such as teacher recruitment and retention and professional development, which have resulted in further research, books, papers and the development of interventions, such as EEF funded RETAIN project for early career teacher retention. Tanya also continues to teach postgraduate students in Education and supervise PhD students.