Dame Joan Stringer Job Title: Chairperson Dame Joan Stringer was elected as Chair of Community Integrated Care by our Board of Trustees in September 2014. Dame Joan retired as Principal & Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University in 2013 after more than 10 years. She completed her Bachelors and PhD degrees at Keele University and began her career in higher education as a lecturer in Politics and Public Administration at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen in 1980. Promoted to head of School and Assistant Principal, she was appointed to the Principal’s post at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh in 1996. A champion of widening access and equality throughout her career, Dame Joan has contributed to many policy initiatives through membership of bodies such as the (Scottish) Dearing Committee on Higher Education, The Secretary of State’s Consultative Steering Group on the Scottish Parliament, chaired the Working Group to establish a single Equality Commission in Northern Ireland and served as Commissioner with the Equal Opportunities Commission. She has served on numerous other bodies including Grampian Health Board and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. She currently has a range of non-executive appointments which include Chair of the Festival Theatres Trust in Edinburgh. She is also a Senior Educational Adviser to the British Council and a Fellow and Council Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was named public sector Leader of the Year at the 2011 Scottish Leadership Awards. In 2001 Joan Stringer was awarded a CBE for Services to Higher Education and was made a DBE in 2009 for services to Local and National Higher Education. .