Anya Higgins
MSc, SFHEA

Biography

Anya is a sport and fitness minded academic with 18 years’ experience in the further and higher education sector, passionate about supporting the widening participation and access to higher education agenda. She is currently in a senior lectureship role with Solent University after 12 years of senior lecturing and collaborative partnership management with the University of Hertfordshire and six years prior in further education.

Anya graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Sport Science and Leisure Management from Brunel University in 1997. She followed this with a MSc in Sport, Coaching and Leisure at Ulster University in 1998, where she continued researching the role of public and private providers with leisure policy and provision in Belfast pre, during and post ceasefire. During her time back home at Ulster, she had the honour of representing Northern Ireland Universities in basketball, and also coaching and managing an U16 Ulster girls squad and a regional U13 girls development squad.

It was her love and enthusiasm for team sport and the associated escapist opportunities that community based sport and team games can give to young people, particularly for those living among polarised communities during troubled political environments, which inadvertently led her into teaching and shaped her career in higher education.