The University of Nottingham is a research-led university that is consistently ranked among the top 10 in the UK. The Centre for Research in Mathematics Education is one of three centres in the School of Education and is one of the largest such groups in the UK. The Centre caters for a wide range of teaching and supervision of higher degrees with research being focused in the interrelated areas of policy and equity, curriculum and pedagogy, continuing professional development and pedagogies. The MARS/Shell Centre, founded in 1968, is a professional design research and development group within the Centre with team members having extensive experience of designing assessment materials, teaching and learning materials and professional development for teachers of mathematics and science. For over forty years this group has contributed to assessment design and research in the UK and internationally, particularly in the United States. The work of members of the Centre in all areas of mathematics education is recognised at a national level with senior staff regularly consulted to advise at a national level by contributing to the work of the National Centre for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics (NCETM) and the government's Advisory Committee for Mathematics Education.

Geoffrey Wake has extensive experience working to integrate the learning and application of mathematics with other subjects and creating well designed materials that support this.

At a national level, he has worked as consultant to the national agency for qualifications and curriculum, designing programmes which lead to qualifications that support learners in integrating mathematics with other subjects. This has been supported by fundamental research into how students and workers learn and apply knowledge across traditional boundaries. This is recognized and highly regarded at international level (see for example: Williams, J.S. and Wake, G.D. (2007). Black boxes in Workplace Mathematics, Educational Studies in Mathematics, 64(3)).