Professor Ian Pickup

Ian Pickup is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Students) at the Open University (OU), with responsibility for the university’s mission of enabling students to achieve their goals. He has oversight of employability, access and participation, and quality monitoring and enhancement, and is Executive Sponsor for the development of the OU’s tuition model and the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (Gen AI) across the institution. Dr Pickup holds a bachelor’s degree in physical education with geography from the University of Warwick and a PhD in education from the University of Roehampton in London. He is a National Teaching Fellow, a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Professor of the Student Experience in Higher Education. Before joining the OU, he was an Adjunct Professor at University College Cork in Ireland and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education and Experience) and Chief Operating Officer at the University of East London.