Pamela is Professor of Arts, Creativities and Education at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education, where she is manager of the Professional Doctorate programme with a mandate to develop best practice for training and education in innovative contemporary and traditional approaches to practice-based, participatory, and arts-based research.

She is a conservatoire-trained musician, an academic, researcher, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Homerton College and The Arts in Society Research Network. She is founder-convenor of CIAN, an intercultural arts network and the biennial international BIBACC conference). She is a re-elected board member of the National Association of Music in Higher Education (NAMHE), sits on the Creative Industries Federation HE/FE working party and was twice elected to the Board of Directors for ISME (2002-2006).

Known internationally for her research on diverse creativities in music of all kinds, with 17 books authored/co-authored/edited and 100 published articles and book chapters, her work addresses crucial issues concerning music (and the arts) in contemporary society. Professor Burnard is dedicated to advancing instrumental and vocal music teaching and learning, teaching music creatively and teaching for diverse musical creativities and their assessment. She is an ardent advocate of practice-based research, arts-informed and a/r/t/ographic inquiry. In this field her ambition is to re-envisage how musical creativities can be developed through innovative practices and key evaluation criteria.