Dan Beard

Dan Beard works at the University of South Wales (USW) providing IT Support Services to academics and students. He’s worked in Further and Higher Education for over 20 years, starting in the University of Glamorgan in 2001.

Dan is UNISON Cymru/Wales’s Higher Education Service Group chair and served on UNISON’s UK-wide Higher Education Executive for over 10 years.

Dan is branch secretary of UNISON USW (which includes the College Merthyr Tydfil and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama) and chair of the Joint Trade Union USW group, acting as the lead spokesperson when engaging with the University’s senior management. He’s been a school governor and staff governor in HEIs and was part of the governance review body that produced the Camm report for University Governance in Wales as the Wales TUC rep.

He is passionate about widening access into post-16 education to enable social mobility.