Research Community

James Glen is a serving British Army late-entry officer and former Warrant Officer in the Scots Guards, as well as a second-year PhD student at Edinburgh Napier University (ENU). He is pursuing a Business Management doctoral program within ENU’s Military Research, Education & Public Engagement department, focusing on the career transition of British Army Service Leavers from military life to civilian employment. This research aims to challenge the Armed Forces’ narrow emphasis on immediate employment as the only measure of successful reintegration. The argument for defining transition success encompasses the development of sustainable career trajectories aligned with the service leavers’ identities, values, and long-term goals. This opportunity will blend operational experience with scholarly research on military strategy, public engagement, and the impact of political and international decisions on the Armed Forces, allowing James to contribute innovative insights and leadership to both military and academic communities.

The King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) is the leading civilian UK centre of excellence for military health research providing much-needed evidence on the health and well-being of Serving and ex-Serving personnel and their families. KCMHR’s research relates to conflict and health, occupational psychiatry, personnel issues and social policy. Their research is conducted in four key areas, Serving personnel, ex-Serving personnel, military families (including those of ex-Serving personnel) and interventions.

Linda Slapakova is a Senior Analyst at RAND where she leads work on the Defence workforce and Armed Forces Community. Her work cuts across personnel policy (particularly understanding future personnel policy challenges, incentivisation, career and talent management) and understanding the experiences and support needs of Veterans and military families. In the latter category, her recent projects have focused on understanding the financial stability of military families, the lived experience of military-to-civilian transition among Veteran cohorts with protected or minority characteristics, and implementation of the Armed Forces Covenant. She is a primarily qualitative researcher and her research interests mainly sit within the field of military sociology and applied policy research.

Lucy is a part-time PhD student with Edinburgh Napier University whilst also serving as an officer in the Royal Air Force. She has a background in Human Resource Management having previously studied cross-cultural competence in British Service Personnel serving in multinational NATO units. Her current research focuses on the role of identity loss in career transition for veterans working with the prison services with the ultimate hope of improving the career transition process for all veterans.

Professor Cotterill is the lead for the Centre for Human Performance Research, His specific area of expertise is the psychology of human performance, and he is both an active practitioner psychologist and researcher in this field. He is experienced as a practitioner psychologist working with a range of military populations focused on psychological performance, mental health and wellbeing. In addition, Prof Cotterill's research seek to better understand factors that impact upon service personnel role performance. Including sleep, resilience, mental health and wellbeing, addiction, stress and coping and performance under pressure. He is also interested in transitions within the military and out of the military into civilian life.

As a social scientist within Robert Gordon University, Professor Zoe Morrison worked to further the application of business and management studies to policy driven change programmes. Her work aimed to inform leadership and human resource management theory through understanding individual experiences of change, including changing expectations of work, careers and employment, and adoption and implementation of technological innovation. Her interpretivist research agenda was curiosity inspired and theoretically driven, drawing on the sociology of work and organisations, and military and family sociologies. Zoe worked in three areas: health, defence and carbon emissions mitigation, often referred to as decarbonisation. Zoe has now moved role to be the Lead Specialist in Culture and Experience at NHS Grampian.