Roger Achkar, Doctorate of Social Science, 2019

What is your current or most recent job title?

Founder and Director General of the Global Waste Cleaning Network (GWCN).

Please tell us a brief summary of your career to date since graduation?

I graduated from Leicester in 2019. The next year, I founded a charitable incorporated organisation in the UK by the name of Global Waste Cleaning Network (GWCN). I was able to drive GWCN to become in just three years the world’s largest and most widespread environmental and energy network with reach to 187 countries and focus on Environment Protection and Green Energy; subjects which are of serious importance to the habitants on planet Earth. 

What were your motivations for enrolling on a course at the University of Leicester?

I initially had an electrical engineering degree from Lebanon, an engineering management degree from France and an MBA from the UK. I needed to complete my education with a professional doctorate that would be concentrated on the competitive advantage of the organisation such as its Human Capital.

Instead of going for a DBA, I chose the social science subject to understand the fundamentals of social research and explore the pedagogies of workplace learning, and the concepts of globalisation, convergence and divergence among others. The University of Leicester was an obvious choice for this doctorate which I sought as it is one of UK's top research universities, and is well-known for its social science doctoral degree.

How did your course and your experience in Leicester aid your personal and professional development?

The education at Leicester helped me understand the importance of being reflective about my work. I now give more attention to identifying where my research work sits within the overall literature and giving the reader a sense of the way in which my research makes a contribution.

The experience at the University of Leicester has also helped me in my daily role at GWCN, as I supervise researchers and provide guidance across academic and research programs.

What would you tell your younger self if they were just starting out at the University of Leicester?

I would advise anyone starting with the DSocSci at Leicester to pay good attention at the University’s expectations at doctoral level, how these are different from those at master’s level and what doctoral dissertations should be like.