Tom McAlear

I am a senior lecturer and business development lead in the Department of Nursing and Community Health at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU). My role includes developing and managing partnerships and collaborations with clinical stakeholders, managing CPD-related finances and maintaining an overview of CPD opportunities for the department.

A particular focus of my role at this time is raising the profile of involvement in nursing CPD as a development opportunity for academic staff in the department; and diversifying our CPD portfolio in order to develop ‘resource-light’ alternatives to traditional income generation models.

I gained my nursing registration in 1992 before graduating with a BSc Health Studies from Paisley University in 2001. I graduate from the Glasgow University with a Master of Nursing degree in 2003 and am currently a Professional Doctorate candidate with an interest in competitive advantage in higher education.

I began my higher education career at GCU in 2006 after a 15-year clinical career that spanned ward-based general surgical nursing, development of pre-admission services and practice-based learning for nurses. I taught on pre-registration nursing programmes at GCU for 8 years before becoming Programme Leader for the postregistration top-up degree in 2014.

In the past 5 years, I have been involved in the development and provision of CPD opportunities for nurses, including partnerships, collaborations and GCU short courses. I am experienced in developing TNE projects and played a key role in gaining approval from the Singapore Nursing Board (SNB) in 2017 for the delivery of a top-up degree there. 

I am currently contributing to TNE projects in Africa and the Middle East, as well as managing the department’s CPD portfolio in the UK.