Martell Baines role is the Progression Widening Participation (WP) Manager at Leeds Arts University and a practitioner researcher. She is the current (2020 21) Chair of the Access and Participation Strategy Group for the Office for Students Uni-Connect partnership ‘Go Higher West Yorkshire’; a regional collaborative WP partnership of 13 Colleges, Universities and a Conservatoire.

Baines’s doctoral student research study is ‘Defining Moments, critical incidents and key influences that prompted progression into post compulsory education in the Arts’. In early 2020 she authored a chapter in ‘Practice-Focused Research in Further Adult and Vocational Education: Shifting Horizons of Educational Practice, Theory and Research’ (Edited by Gregson & Spedding, Palgrave Macmillan) and an article ‘Reflections of a Practitioner Researcher in the field of WP in Arts Education’ Education Sciences. MDPI.