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Nadira Mirza
Nadira is Dean of the School of Lifelong Education and Development and Director of the Public and Community involvement at the University of Bradford. She has lead widening participation that is making it possible for young people who have no family history of higher education to access university courses. This work has been regularly short listed for national Awards. She has been a youth and community officer and was instrumental in establishing the voluntary sector infrastructure in Bradford.
Nadira sits on a number of local, regional and national committees charged with raising educational aspiration and attainment. She is the Deputy Chairperson of the Bradford Hospitals Foundation Teaching Trust, chairing a number of strategic committees including the Born in Bradford project which is an international action research study of childhood diseases over the next ten years.
Nadira sits on the Widening Participation and Business and Community strategic advisory committees of the Higher Education Funding Council of England, is advisor to the Management Development Foundation, an international training consultancy for the developing world based in the Netherlands, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a visiting Fellow of the University of Azad Kashmir.
Nadira’s first job, which brought her to Bradford in 1980, was as a youth and community worker. She was responsible for developing youth projects, emergency accommodation with learning facilities and the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, all for Asian young women. She has three children aged 24, 22 and 20 and lives in Bradford.