<p>Much of Dame Janet Ritterman’s professional career has been in higher education, first at Middlesex Polytechnic (now Middlesex University), then at Goldsmiths (University of London) and from 1987 at Dartington College of Arts, initially as Head of Music and latterly as Principal. Between 1993 and 2005 she was Director of the Royal College of Music and Visiting Professor of the University of Plymouth. It was during this period that she helped to establish, and served as the first Chair of Conservatoires UK, the body which now serves as the voice of specialist higher arts education in the United Kingdom.</p> <p>She has served as Governor and adviser to a number of higher education institutions, among them Falmouth University, the Royal Welsh College of Music &amp; Drama and the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, and was formerly an Independent Public Appointments Assessor. She has extensive experience in the accreditation and review of higher education programmes both in this country and in other parts of the world. Appointed as a founder member of the Austrian Science Board (Wissenschaftsrat), where she was responsible for working with the country’s six state arts universities, she helped to create and develop the Austrian research funding programme for the arts, PEEK, for which she chairs the international board.</p> <p>A Trustee of the European Union Chamber Orchestra and of The Countess of Munster Musical Trust, Vice-President of the Royal College of Music and since 2013, Chancellor of Middlesex University, she was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire for services to music in the 2002 Queen’s Birthday Honours. In 2016 the Austrian Government conferred on her the Ehrenkreuz (Cross of Honour, 1st Class) for Science and Art.</p>