Professor Lois Fitch
Member of the Academic Board & Risk Management Group
Lois has extensive experience in HE curriculum design, innovation and review and institutional review, as well as issues and leadership in quality assurance and enhancement and academic management.
Lois has extensive experience in HE curriculum design, research and innovation, student partnership and institutional review, as well as issues and leadership in quality assurance and enhancement, and academic governance.
She was RNCM’s institutional lead in the Higher Education Academy Degree Standards Project (External Examining) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She acted as Chairperson for the 2021 Quality Board-Led Institutional Review of the Icelandic University of the Arts.
Previously, she has been Visiting Professor at the Katholiecke Universiteit, Leuven, and is currently Vice-President of the Royal Musical Association, and Chair of the Finance, Fundraising and Communications Committee.
A musicologist, Professor Fitch pursues research interests in New Music, and the interdisciplinary relationships between music and other performing arts, focusing in particular on issues of notation/text interpretation and the performer’s creative process.
Lois has 25 years teaching experience in Higher Education, covering broad topics including the History of Western Music from c. 1400, Interdisciplinarity in the Arts, Performance Studies, Aesthetics and Performance Art, and has supervised research students in these fields, including PhDs.
As Deputy Principal at RCS Lois has led major curriculum reviews, is institutional lead for the SFC Outcomes Framework and Accountability Measures, and led a successful bid to the Universities Transformation Fund for investment in Organisational Development in 2026.
Priorities include exploring ways of enhancing the student learning experience, and acting as a persuasive advocate for RCS students and staff at various external national and international organisations, building on the unique opportunities for collaborative and interdisciplinary practice and research at RCS. Lois led on the development of the Conservatoire’s Strategic Plan 2030 and associated Learning and Teaching Strategy. Lois is a Board Member of the Music Educations Partnership Group (MEPG) and a Trustee of Sistema Scotland and the Cumnock Tryst.
Having benefitted from local authority grants and bursaries throughout her own schooling and student life, without which she could not have accessed Higher Education, Lois is committed to supporting and enhancing fair access to the Performing Arts at all levels in the Conservatoire.