Dr Fraser Robertson

Director, Lead Trainer

Dr Fraser Robertson has been involved in large-scale projects for nearly 20 years. He has run project teams for organisations in such diverse locations as Zürich, New York, Shanghai, Johannesburg and Ljubljana; and has used his experience to train and mentor in these cities as well as at HEIs in the UK and Europe.

With 13 years training specifically in the HEI sector, 8 years supporting the Space sector, and 10-years supporting candidates towards professional PM certification, his expertise is used to support a broad-range of students, researchers and staff in knowledge-intensive organisations across the UK and globally.

Formerly training manager at SunGard’s Glasgow research and development centre, Fraser developed a certification and mentoring programme for both internal and client staff based on the government’s SFIA Framework. During his relationship with Fistral, he has proven experience delivering practical training for many different, diverse sectors and within world-class organisations and research centres globally. He has delivered for employees on high-profile projects such as CERN, Galileo, Rosetta and the International Space Station, and with partners supporting employees and internships at AWE, the Barnes Group, Boeing, EDF Energy, Lockheed Martin, Rolls Royce and Unilever. He has supported strategic projects such as UCC’s Unified PM Approach for University Management Team (Strategy) and the SQA Portfolio Office Capability Improvement Programme; and run bespoke risk assessment workshops with live outputs for senior staff working on European Space Agency ATHENA and JUICE missions.

In addition to traditional training courses he has also: delivered bespoke sessions and staff development days for many customers including the Royal College of Art, Association of Research Managers and Administrators, European Space Agency, Bristol and Bath universities; delivered the opening plenary for the Scottish Part-Time Researcher Conference; and has regularly been asked to support knowledge-intensive and/or research-led or research-related bodies such as DTCs and EU-funded international projects in the UK, Ireland and overseas. He graduated with a Doctorate of Business Administration in 2015. The title of his research is “Participant perceptions of value: a qualitative framework for evaluating project management training”.

Most recently, Fraser has led the design, development and delivery of the University of Bournemouth Research Leadership programme for Early- and Mid- Career Researchers which after a very successful pilot has resulted in an ongoing Programme of delivery for ECRS and MCAs, and Associate Professors in BU. Fraser has also led development of a Training Programme to support the implementation of a bespoke research-based Project Management methodology for the Hutton Group and the accompanying tailored PM courses for staff.

As a professionally certified practitioner, and as an active consultant applying best practice day-to-day in academic and industry settings as well as when designing and developing training, Dr Robertson can evidence a strong working knowledge of a range of relevant project management methodologies and toolkit. These include, but are not limited to, PMBOK, Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, and PRINCE2.

Fraser enjoys running and entering 10k and half marathon races, watching and playing football, and scuba diving. He qualified as a referee with the Scottish Football Association. Fraser has played musical instruments in several bands and likes attending concerts.