Staff profile

Dr Christina Chinas is an Assistant Professor at the University of Durham in the UK, where she lectures on the MA in Education and convenes the MA module Leading Change in Education Organisations. At the same time, she offers advice to leaders and policy-makers on matters related to organisational structure, improvement, change, effectiveness and evaluation, including oral and written suggestions to the Cypriot Ministry of Education since 2018.

Christina has collaborated with public and private organizations in higher education in UK, Greece, and Cyprus. She began her studies by attending the Department of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with specialization in Pedagogy. She continued her postgraduate studies in the UK at the Institute of Education, UCL. Christina attended the MA in Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment. She then attended the MPhil in Educational Leadership and School Improvement at the University of Cambridge with a scholarship and she was offered to continue her studies with the direct result of being awarded the PhD in Education. At the beginning of her career, she worked as a secondary teacher and then focused on her academic path. Christina had different roles, among which being a researcher, Lecture and PG Programme Director, in several national and international institutions, for example, University of Southampton, Cambridge University, Open University (Cyprus), and others. Beyond her academic background, she has also worked as a project manager, office manager, a consultant in private organizations and has worked with multinational companies such as Deloitte Ltd, as well as small and medium-sized businesses internationally. She has extensive research experience, managing and overseeing major projects within Cyprus, Greece and the United Kingdom. She has taken part in a variety of subsidized projects that took place in different parts of the world. She is a member of research associations such as EARLI, WALS, CIES, and ECER, and has a strong presence in numerous conferences and seminars. 

Research Interests

Christina’s areas of research focus is on educational leadership, change, teachers’ professional development, socio-cultural discourse analysis, teachers’ self-evaluation and school self-evaluation as well as matters related to educational policy. She is interested in developing cross-national research and methodologies to conduct research with diverse educational systems in European countries and internationally. 

• Durham University Evidence Centre for Education (DECE)

• 0000: Advisor - Member of Evaluation Committee Ministry of Education and Culture, Cyprus:

Journal Article

• Gravani, M., Hatzopoulos, P. & Chinas, C. (2021). Adult education and migration in Cyprus: A critical analysis. Journal of Adult & Continuing Education 27(1): 25-41.
• Brown, Chris, Flood, Jane, Armstrong, Paul, MacGregor, Stephen & Chinas, Christina (2021). Is distributed leadership an effective approach for mobilising professional capital across Professional Learning Networks? Exploring a case from England. Journal of Professional Capital & Community 6(1): 64-78.