Iain Atherton is Professor of Nursing and Data Science at Edinburgh Napier University. His work is dedicated to the betterment of nursing and midwifery professions. He originally trained as a registered nurse in the 1990s. The move to making nursing a degree-only profession saw him go to university initially to read Development Studies, then at master’s level in Medical Demography and then to a PhD in Human Geography. These experiences were for him transformative. It has given him a passion towards enabling the same opportunities for nursing students to experience a truly academic education. In addition to his internationally recognised research using administrative data, he has written widely on educational topics including a co-authored book on the social sciences for nursing students.