Dr Sophie Banks
Manager, Student Voice
Biography
Biography
Sophie Banks is the Student Voice Manager in the Office of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Students). She joined The Open University in 2021, after working in various student voice and research roles at the University of South Wales and Cardiff Metropolitan University. At The Open University, she leads on Student Consultation, the Student Charter, and other student voice activities, to ensure that students have a voice to make positive changes to their student and future students' experiences.
Sophie is also a researcher of Higher Education, who completed her PhD in 2024 and graduated in 2025. Her thesis analysed student perceptions of the lecturers when nominating them for the award of Best Lecturer in Student-Led Teaching Awards. Within her thesis, Sophie wrote seven creative nonfiction short stories based on the truth of the dataset to depict how academics who identify as women experience inequity in their roles.
Qualifications
- PhD Educational Research (Higher Education) - Lancaster University - 2025
- MA Creative Writing - Aberystwyth University - 2016
- BA (Hons) English Literature - Cardiff University - 2014
- MA Module: Online Teaching: Embedding Social, Race and Gender-Related Equity - The Open University - due to complete early 2026
- MA Module: Online Teaching: Accessibility and Inclusive Learning - The Open University - due to complete early 2026
- Senior Fellowship - Advance HE - 2025
- MSc Module: Project Management - The Open University - 2022
- ILM Level 3 in Management - 2018
- Fellowship - Advance HE - 2018
Research Interests
Sophie has research interests in several areas within Higher Education research:
- Equity in education
- Gender inequity in academics who identify as women
- Student-Led Teaching Awards
- Student perceptions of teaching and student evaluation of teaching (SETs)
- Advance HE'S Professional Standards Framework and Fellowship programme
- Students' Unions, student democracy and politics
- Student engagement
- Student voice
- Research ethics
Sophie is interested in qualitative research with expertise in thematic network analysis and producing creative nonfiction short stories that show, not tell, her readers the results of her research.
Speaking Engagements
- Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference - 2026 - Student-Led Teaching Awards: Students are experts in excellent teaching
- CAN Conference - 2025 - Student-Led Teaching Awards: Students are experts in excellent teaching
- International Women's Week - 2025 - Men are good for university reputation; women are good for emotional labour: short stories readings
- Words Matter - 2023 - Gender Bias in Student-Led Teaching Award nominations
- Lancaster and Cumbria PGR Conference - 2021 - Representation in NUS: Gender text analysers to analyse NUS conference motions (poster) / Gender Bias in Student-Led Teaching Award nominations (presentation)
- QAA Annual Conference - 2019 - Student researchers investigating their own universities to make positive change
- QAA Evolving Student Engagement - 2019 - Student researchers investigating their own universities to make positive change
Activities
- Personal Development Book Club for the OU Women's Network Facilitator (2025 - present)
- PVC-S EDI Group Co-Chair (2022 - present)
- Allyship Programme (2024 - 2025)
- Access, Participation and Success Conference 2023 - Student Engagement Theme Co-Lead (2022 - 2023)
- UCAS Student Advisory Group Member (2020 - 2023)
- Best Poster Award - Lancaster and Cumbria PGR Conference (2021)
- QAA Mini-Webinar on No-Detriment Policies Speaker (2020)
- QAA UK Quality Code 2018 - Learning and Teaching Chapter Writer (2018)
- UNICAF Consultant on Student Voice (2018)
Publications
Banks, S. (2025) Lecturers on demand: Student perceptions within Student-Led Teaching Award nominations. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 7:1, 290-310. Available from: https://sehej.raise-network.com/raise/article/view/1384
Banks, S. (2024) Men are good for university reputation; women are good for emotional labour: Student-Led Teaching Awards and the role of gender. PhD, Lancaster University. https://doi.org/10.17635/lancaster/thesis/2416
