Professor Anne Tallontire

Profile

I am a social scientist with over twenty years of experience in higher education in education, research and leadership at school, faculty and institutional levels. I am a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

My disciplinary background is in economics, politics and development studies. I teach on the undergraduate and masters sustainability programmes in the School of Earth and Environment. Much of my research focuses on the way in which the private sector affects development, particularly through trade and corporate social responsibility. I look at this in two different ways: through a focus on supply chain relationships and also sustainability standards, such as fair trade. I am also interested in the nature of partnership in multi-stakeholder and cross-sector contexts. I have undertaken research in various parts of Africa, including Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Sudan and South Africa

More recently I have begun to undertake pedagogical research on student transition into higher education, sustainability in the curriculum and global educational partnerships, building on my educational leadership

I have two leadership roles at the University at present, first as Academic Lead for Professional Development, working with the University's Organisational Development and Professional Learning department and as part of the Leadership Team for the Sustainable Curriculum Principle of the University's Climate Plan, leading on the evidence and scholarly underpinnings to support discipline focused, interdisciplinary and pedagogical developments.

Responsibilities

• Academic Lead for Professional Development, Sustainable Curriculum Leadership Team, LITE Fellow

Research interests

In my research I have considered who benefits in the supply chain, whose voice is heard in the governance of the supply chain, and the standards that are used to promote sustainability. My experience has largely been in the agri-food sector where I focus on the impacts and perspectives of those at the producer end of the chain. Building on my educational leadership in the faculty and university, I have undertaken research on sustainability education, organisational change, and global education partnerships.

I am a member of the Fair Trade International Symposium (FTIS) Steering Group, the leading international group of academics and practitioners working on fair trade. I hosted the FTIS at Leeds in 19-21 June 2023.

Current projects:

PI: Fostering transformative pedagogies in global education partnerships at the University of Leeds, 2023-25

Co-I: Healthy soil, Healthy food, Healthy people (H3), 2021-25, for UKRI Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF programme, Programme Website: H3: Research on Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy People Details of Workpackage 6: Improving Resilience in Supply Chains | H3

Recent research

Lead researcher: Redefining Sustainability in the Curriculum, Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence, 2022-24

PI: Farmers' perspectives on challenges in the food system: a collaborative research partnership, funded by the AHRC, to March 2022. See this profile and reflections here

N8 Agri-food Strategic Pump Priming project “Differentiated resilience in global food systems: a food sovereignty approach”. PI working with Elisa Greco and colleagues across SRI and the Uni as well as York, Lancaster and Newcastle. To March 2018.

Co-Investigator for BURNS - Building Up Resilience in Supply Chains, a White Rose Collaborative Project.http://www.whiterose.ac.uk/collaborationfunds/building-up-resilience-in-supply-chains-network-burns/

ESRC LSSI Impact Accelerator Grant: “Embedding a learning culture and facilitating Fairtrade –academic links” . PI working with Joy Justice, building on her PhD work with Fairtrade International and in collaboration with Monitoring and Evaluation and Learning Unit at Fairtrade International and a training tool for facilitating academic-NGO research partnerships

Climate Information for Resilient Tea Production (CI4T), CoI on project funded by CDKN from May 2017 to April 2018 led by Professor Andy Dougill, http://www.futureclimateafrica.org/news/launch-of-climate-information-for-resilient-tea-production-ci4t-project/

I was Principal Investigator for an ESRC-DFID research project - The Governance Implications of Private Standards Initiatives (2007-2010).

PhD Supervision

Completed PhDs

• Mina Said Allsopp: Female Empowerment Within Global Value Chains: A Study of the Dynamics of Employment within Kenyan Export Industries
• Betty Chinyamunyamu: The Impact of Government Interventions in Agriculture on Women Farmers: The Case of the Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP)
• Rowshan Hannan: Reducing poverty through co-operative enterprises
• Rebecca Howard: Pathways to ‘Fair Carbon’: Assessing Fairness in Standard Setting and Carbon Projects
• Adrian Fenton: Climate change adaptation and microfinance: A potential win-win scenario?
• Claudia Pollen: An Analysis of Women’s Agency in the Zambian Floriculture Industry using a Global Production Network Approach: Mechanisms and Pathways for Agency.
• Liz Morgan: Ways of framing climate change to drive material scale mitigation and adaptation strategies of large consumer-facing businesses
• Simon Manda: Large Scale Agricultural Investment and livelihood impacts: the case of sugar in Zambia
• Laura Smith: The making of Uganda’s oil: An exploration of subnational dynamics in an emerging East African oil frontier
• Heather Briggs: Sustainable Intensification: insights from vertical farming on the links between diffusion of innovation and the business model
• Jose Manuel Vega Barbero: Investigating governance systems in the coffee global production network to assess how they affect small farmers.

• Brewing up resilience in supply chains research network (BURNS)
• Farmers' perspectives on challenges in the food system: a collaborative research partnership

Qualifications

• BA (1st class honours) Economics, Politics with North American Studies, University of Leeds, 1991
• MA (Distinction) Development Studies, University of Leeds, 1993
• PhD, Development and Project Planning Centre, University of Bradford, 1999

Professional memberships

• Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Member of the Development Studies Association

Student education

Until recently I was the Faculty of Environment’s Pro-Dean for Student Education.

As Academic Lead for Professional Development I chair the University’s Professional Development and Recognition Group and work with colleagues in Organisational Development and Professional Learning (ODPL) to support educational enhancement and leadership development, including contriburing to the Career Pathways programme.

I am a member of the Leadership Team for the Sustainable Curriculum programme, which is part of the University’s Climate Plan, leading on the scholarship and evidence base and supporting professional development on education for sustainable development.

First a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Fellowship in 2010, I became a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in February 2024.

I led a LITE Fellowship called Redefining Sustainability in the Curriculum 2022-24 and between 2020 and 2022 led a project to rethink the university approach to welcome, induction and transition, including a preliminary evaluation of this work funded by LITE, followed by academic papers.

I was awarded a University Student Education Fellow (USEF) in 2013. Using funds from this award I undertook an investigation into how staff can facilitate better engagement in group work by students ("Making Group Work Work" , see Internet publications below).

I currently contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching on the BA Environment and Business, MSc Sustainability and Business & MSc Sustainable Food Systems programmes, drawing on my experience of the role of the private sector in development, sustainable supply chains and the role of private and multi-stakeholder standards such as Fairtrade.

Research groups and institutes

• Business Organisations for Sustainable Societies
• Environment and Development
• Sustainability Research Institute