Professor Rachael Langford, President and Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff Metropolitan University, has been confirmed as a member of the judging panel for the Education Awards 2027, bringing senior higher education leadership across Wales and England to the evaluation of excellence across the education sector.

Langford leads Cardiff Metropolitan University as President and Vice-Chancellor, having previously served as the university's Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Her path to executive leadership ran through some of the most demanding academic roles in the UK sector, including Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes University and Head of the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University.

That progression, from departmental leadership through faculty management to institutional direction, gives her a grounded understanding of educational leadership at every level of a university, and of what it takes to sustain teaching excellence and research excellence within a complex higher education institution.

Her academic formation includes degrees in French from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and she is a fluent Welsh speaker, a combination that reflects a career-long engagement with language, culture, and access to learning. That perspective is relevant to a programme that recognises education innovation across institutions of very different scale and mission.

Moreover, Langford's contribution to the wider sector is equally substantial. She sits on the Board of the Office for the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, the British Academy Strategic Committee for Languages in Higher Education, and the British Council's Education Advisory Committee, and serves on the Steering Board for Arwain, the Welsh national school of government for public sector leaders. Those roles connect her to quality, student success, and policy conversations that shape higher education well beyond her own institution.

Langford joins a panel that includes Triena Delany of Mary Immaculate College, Dr Mary Kelly of Hibernia College, Allison Kenneally of South East Technological University, Paul Mullally of Education Lighthouse, Ciarán Ó Hannracháin of Atlantic Technological University, Martin O'Connell of UCC-Tyndall, Dr Kushan Rathnasekara of the University of Kelaniya, Patrice Twomey of the University of Limerick, and Shauna Whyte of South East Technological University.

Entries for the 2027 cycle are now open, with submissions closing on 18 December 2026. The Education Awards 2027 ceremony will take place on 15 April 2027, with finalists to be announced on 11 February 2027.

For the complete judging panel, category criteria, and past winners, visit the Education Awards website and subscribe to the newsletter for updates and insights.