 He has been awarded several grants to develop new services and was a member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Shared Services working group.He now chairs Co Sector Ltd, the University of London's shared services organisation.Cobb provides consultancy to other universities on the use of IT and in 2008 (on behalf of the European University Association) provided advice on the integration on IT infrastructure and systems for the merger of four universities in Strasbourg; Louis Pasteur University, Robert Schuman University, Marc Bloch University and l'Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres d'Alsace.