Ralitsa has 17 years of experience in project management and has conducted award-winning research in the field. She is a lecturer in the MSc Project Management programme at the University of the West of Scotland and is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

She is passionate about education and serves as a guest lecturer and external examiner at institutions across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Over the years, she has obtained several degrees and professional qualifications and has published five books.

Her current research interests encompass quality management and service quality within higher education, as well as cultural studies and the impact of cultural characteristics on student expectations and academic success, alongside developing cultural capabilities of academic staff.  

Before becoming a lecturer, she managed national student programmes, promoted enterprise and entrepreneurship among students, and supported the embedding of innovation within university curricula across Scottish universities and colleges.

Alongside her academic career, she is also a qualified Chartered Marketer and has built several brands from scratch into successful, multiple award-winning businesses.

Most recent research outputs include:

• Investigation of Project and Risk Management practices and challenges among UK SMEs and stakeholder collaboration improvement via effective communication; 
• Developing project simulations for use in the project management curriculum. 
• Enhancing the project management curriculum. 
• Service quality expectations of international students and the impact of cultural characteristics on academic success. 
• Cultural responsiveness of teaching staff across UK multi-cultural institutions. 

• Project Management education in the UK and internationally
• Signature pedagogies and the Project Management Curriculum
• Quality Management for Higher Education
• Curriculum alignment with graduate job market requirements
• Embedding Marketing techniques for effective teaching and research 

Higher and Further Education institutions with engineering, computing and business disciplines. 

• Project Management
• Quality Management
• Organisational behaviour
• Employee training and development
• Business strategy 
• Operations management
• Risk management 
• Marketing stragegy 
• Brand development 
• Marketing communications 
• Digital marketing 
• Innovation
• Events management