Liam Francis Gearon (BA, Hons, MA, MPhil, Cert He, PhD, FHEA, FRSA, Docent) is Associate Professor at the Department of Education, Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford; Docent, University of Helsinki, Finland; Honorary; Conjoint Professor at Newcastle University, Australia; Visiting Professor at the Irish Centre for Catholic Studies, MIC, Limerick, Ireland; Extraordinary Professor, North-West University, South Africa.
With a published doctorate in English literature (University of Calgary Press, 2002), he is the author or editor of thirty (30) academic books, ten (10) education textbooks, including a curriculum book series for Macmillan Caribbean, and approaching one hundred (100) articles and chapters, as well as guest editorship of nine (9) book-length special issues of international journals. With a thirty-year university teaching and research career delineated by a path-defining interdisciplinarity, one which has built original and significant conceptual and theoretical bridges between the arts, humanities, social sciences and education, with core interests at the interface of religion and education, culminating in the major edited collection, lead edited with Professor Arniika Kuusisto, University of Helsinki, the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Education, in press, to be published March 2025 by Oxford University Press.
Formerly Reader and Professor of Education at the University of Surrey, Roehampton, and Roehampton University, and Research Professor at Plymouth University, as Principal Investigator, Liam has led funded multidisciplinary research projects across the arts, humanities, social sciences and education with the Academy of Finland, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Nuffield Foundation, the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, and the Society for Educational Studies, a career total of funding approaching £6,000,000, including a £4.5 million grant to establish a landmark UK University Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights at the University of Surrey Roehampton.
Founder-Convenor of the Philosophy, Religion and Education Research Group, this is a conduit for forging theoretical and empirical interconnections between the arts, humanities, philosophy and the social sciences through the common focus of education. Contributions of this research group have been made to matters such as: theories of research policy and impact; the cultural value of research in the arts and humanities; research ethics; the intersection of epistemological and ethical domains in research in schools; religion, radicalisation and counter-terrorism in schools and universities; and the creation of distinctive sub-field of study at the interface of education, security and intelligence studies.
With cognate research interests in security across all phases of education, from early years to higher education, Liam has for over the past decade collaboratively developed an interdisciplinary sub-field at the boundary of universities, security and intelligence studies, including research ethics in the securitised university (Gearon and Parsons, 2019). One of the defining outcomes here is Liam’s quarter of a million-word edited collection arising from the international Colloquium at Oriel College he convened in 2017, the Routledge International Handbook of Universities, Security and Intelligence Studies (Gearon, 2019). Interdisciplinary and inter-agency work in this area has included the Nuffield Foundation-funded Universities and National Security: Research and Policy Collaborations 2019-2020, with a cross-disciplinary research team of 14 distinguished Co-Investigators. These included Professor Richard Aldrich, Politics and International Studies, Warwick; Professor Joy Carter CBE, DL, Vice-Chancellor, Winchester, Professor Quassim Cassam, Philosophy, Warwick; Professor Bill Durodie, Politics, Languages and International Studies, Bath; Professor Michael Goodman, War Studies, King’s College London; Gwilym Hughes, Oxford Intelligence Group, Nuffield College, Oxford; Professor Adrian Kendry, former Senior Defence Economist, NATO; Dan Larsen, Trinity College, Cambridge; Professor Sir David Omand GCB former Director, GCHQ; Professor Mark Phythian History, Politics & International Relations, Leicester; Professor John Preston, Sociology, Essex; Dr Tristram Riley-Smith, Centre for Science and Policy, Cambridge; Dr Christopher Westcott, former head of BBC Monitoring and Reuters Institute of Journalism, Oxford.
Most recently, through a significant Academy of Finland research grant (2018-2023) with Professor Arniika Kuusisto (Helsinki/ Oxford), as International Co-Principal Investigator, he has overseen the research of two highly productive early career, post-doctoral researchers on radicalisation. This includes notable social and policy impacts such as the development of a national strategy around extremism through education for the Ministry of Justice in Finland (Activities | Growing up radical? | University of Helsinki). With quantitative and qualitative data, the project produced a substantial number of policy-impactful, quality research outputs (Publications | Growing up radical? | University of Helsinki).
A further, directly consecutive Academy of Finland research grant (2023-2027; 487 318 €, with c. 250,000 € from the University of Helsinki), also with Professor Arniika Kuusisto (Helsinki/ Oxford), as International Co-Principal Investigator, he is leading a team collectively totally nine researchers for the Child in Time – Existential Resilience in Early Childhood (CiTe) project, Researchers | Resilience and Well-Being in Early Childhood | University of Helsinki. This study examines children’s trajectories of constructing existential resilience and well-being in early childhood, the study utilizing Constructivist Grounded Theory for building a model for understanding and supporting young children’s existential resilience and well-being. The project results will provide knowledge on young children’s existential resilience and well-being, to inform research, policy and practice.
Liam Francis Gearon (BA, Hons, MA, MPhil, Cert He, PhD, FHEA, FRSA, Docent) is Associate Professor at the Department of Education, Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford; Docent, University of Helsinki, Finland; Honorary; Conjoint Professor at Newcastle University, Australia; Visiting Professor at the Irish Centre for Catholic Studies, MIC, Limerick, Ireland; Extraordinary Professor, North-West University, South Africa.
With a published doctorate in English literature (University of Calgary Press, 2002), he is the author or editor of thirty (30) academic books, ten (10) education textbooks, including a curriculum book series for Macmillan Caribbean, and approaching one hundred (100) articles and chapters, as well as guest editorship of nine (9) book-length special issues of international journals. With a thirty-year university teaching and research career delineated by a path-defining interdisciplinarity, one which has built original and significant conceptual and theoretical bridges between the arts, humanities, social sciences and education, with core interests at the interface of religion and education, culminating in the major edited collection, lead edited with Professor Arniika Kuusisto, University of Helsinki, the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Education, in press, to be published March 2025 by Oxford University Press.
Formerly Reader and Professor of Education at the University of Surrey, Roehampton, and Roehampton University, and Research Professor at Plymouth University, as Principal Investigator, Liam has led funded multidisciplinary research projects across the arts, humanities, social sciences and education with the Academy of Finland, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Nuffield Foundation, the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, and the Society for Educational Studies, a career total of funding approaching £6,000,000, including a £4.5 million grant to establish a landmark UK University Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights at the University of Surrey Roehampton.
Founder-Convenor of the Philosophy, Religion and Education Research Group, this is a conduit for forging theoretical and empirical interconnections between the arts, humanities, philosophy and the social sciences through the common focus of education. Contributions of this research group have been made to matters such as: theories of research policy and impact; the cultural value of research in the arts and humanities; research ethics; the intersection of epistemological and ethical domains in research in schools; religion, radicalisation and counter-terrorism in schools and universities; and the creation of distinctive sub-field of study at the interface of education, security and intelligence studies.
With cognate research interests in security across all phases of education, from early years to higher education, Liam has for over the past decade collaboratively developed an interdisciplinary sub-field at the boundary of universities, security and intelligence studies, including research ethics in the securitised university (Gearon and Parsons, 2019). One of the defining outcomes here is Liam’s quarter of a million-word edited collection arising from the international Colloquium at Oriel College he convened in 2017, the Routledge International Handbook of Universities, Security and Intelligence Studies (Gearon, 2019). Interdisciplinary and inter-agency work in this area has included the Nuffield Foundation-funded Universities and National Security: Research and Policy Collaborations 2019-2020, with a cross-disciplinary research team of 14 distinguished Co-Investigators. These included Professor Richard Aldrich, Politics and International Studies, Warwick; Professor Joy Carter CBE, DL, Vice-Chancellor, Winchester, Professor Quassim Cassam, Philosophy, Warwick; Professor Bill Durodie, Politics, Languages and International Studies, Bath; Professor Michael Goodman, War Studies, King’s College London; Gwilym Hughes, Oxford Intelligence Group, Nuffield College, Oxford; Professor Adrian Kendry, former Senior Defence Economist, NATO; Dan Larsen, Trinity College, Cambridge; Professor Sir David Omand GCB former Director, GCHQ; Professor Mark Phythian History, Politics & International Relations, Leicester; Professor John Preston, Sociology, Essex; Dr Tristram Riley-Smith, Centre for Science and Policy, Cambridge; Dr Christopher Westcott, former head of BBC Monitoring and Reuters Institute of Journalism, Oxford.
Most recently, through a significant Academy of Finland research grant (2018-2023) with Professor Arniika Kuusisto (Helsinki/ Oxford), as International Co-Principal Investigator, he has overseen the research of two highly productive early career, post-doctoral researchers on radicalisation. This includes notable social and policy impacts such as the development of a national strategy around extremism through education for the Ministry of Justice in Finland (Activities | Growing up radical? | University of Helsinki). With quantitative and qualitative data, the project produced a substantial number of policy-impactful, quality research outputs (Publications | Growing up radical? | University of Helsinki).
A further, directly consecutive Academy of Finland research grant (2023-2027; 487 318 €, with c. 250,000 € from the University of Helsinki), also with Professor Arniika Kuusisto (Helsinki/ Oxford), as International Co-Principal Investigator, he is leading a team collectively totally nine researchers for the Child in Time – Existential Resilience in Early Childhood (CiTe) project, Researchers | Resilience and Well-Being in Early Childhood | University of Helsinki. This study examines children’s trajectories of constructing existential resilience and well-being in early childhood, the study utilizing Constructivist Grounded Theory for building a model for understanding and supporting young children’s existential resilience and well-being. The project results will provide knowledge on young children’s existential resilience and well-being, to inform research, policy and practice.
Noted for the globally critical analysis of post-Enlightenment epistemological foundations of religion in education, he has contributed new insights to secularisation theory in numerous, some award-winning, monographs, such as Master Class in Religious Education (Gearon, 2013); On Holy Ground (Gearon, 2015) [2016 Society of Education Studies Book Prize]; Religious Authority and the Arts: Conversations in Political Theology (Gearon, 2015); and State Religious Education and the State of the Religious Life (Gearon and Prud’homme, 2018). The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Education (Oxford University Press, March 2025) includes significant reconsiderations of religion and education at a geopolitical turning point of nuclear war angst through Liam’s conceptualisation of ‘Enlightenment’s empire’ and ‘apocalyptic modernity’.
Doctoral supervision and Graduate teaching
PGCE Religious Education (Subject lead)
- Masters in Learning and Teaching (Subject lead)
- Comparative and International Education
EXTERNAL POSTS
2020- Docent, Helsinki University, Finland
2020- Extraordinary Professor, Faculty of Education, North-West University, South Africa
2019-2021 Visiting Professor, Irish Institute of Catholic Studies, MIC, Limerick, Ireland
2012-2020 Conjoint Professor, Newcastle University, Australia
2019-2023 Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Education, University of Birmingham
PREVIOUS EXTERNAL POSTS
2011-2018, Adjunct Professor, Australian Catholic University, Australia
2010-2011, Visiting Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Plymouth
2008-2010, Research Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Plymouth
2006-2008, Professor of Education, University of Roehampton
2000-2006, Reader in Education, University of Surrey Roehampton
2006-2008, Senior Fellow, Centre of Excellence in Human Rights, University of Surrey Roehampton
2005-2008, Vice-President, International Human Rights Education Consortium, New York, USA
2001-2005, Director, Centre for Research in Human Rights, University of Surrey, Roehampton
1996-2000, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Roehampton, London
UK RESEARCH COUNCIL PEER REVIEW COLLEGES
AHRC Expert Group on Covid Research Group and Research Grant Panel ‘Introducer’
AHRC Peer Review College (2019 Gold Standard award, for ‘Recognition of significant contributions to the AHRC Peer Review College’)
ESRC Peer Review College
Universities UK Peer Review College Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF)
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL PEER REVIEWER
Academy of Finland
Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
EU 7th Framework Program for Research
Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s Public Policy Research Fund (PPR)
Irish Research Council
John Templeton Foundation
National Research Foundation, South Africa
PROFESSIONAL AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATIONS
Association of University Lecturers in Religion and Education (AULRE, co-founder and former Chair)
British Educational Research Association (BERA)
European Educational Research Association (EERA)
International Seminar on Religious Education and Values (ISREV)
Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB)
Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE)
Society for Educational Studies (SES)
Also:
Executive (2019-2022) Oxford Intelligence Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Fellow, Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
Fellow, Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)
Cambridge Intelligence Seminar
OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES AT OXFORD
Elected by Congregation to the University of Oxford Prevent Steering Group
Social Sciences Divisional representative of the Permanent Private Halls Supervisory Committee (PPHSC), a senior committee of the University of Oxford overseeing governance of Blackfriars; Campion Hall; Regent’s Park College; St Benet’s; St Stephen’s House; Wycliffe Hall.
Member, Central University Research Ethics Committee (CUREC)
Chair, Department of Education Research Ethics Committee (DREC)
Member, Inter-Divisional Social Sciences and Humanities Research Ethics Committee (IDREC)
Chair, Bodleian Library Education Committee
Member and occasional Chair Social Sciences Divisional Library Committee
Education Advisory Group, Christ Church College, Oxford
EDITORSHIP OF INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS
Gearon, L. (Guest editor) (2021) Literature and Security, Special Issue, Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, with a planned formal launch at Lodz, Poland.
Gearon, L., (Lead Guest Editor with editorial team) Kuusisto, A., Matemba, Y., Benjamin, S., Du Preez, P., Koirikivi, P., Simmonds, S. (2020) Decolonising the Religious Education Curriculum: International Perspectives in Theory, Research, and Practice, Special Issue, British Journal of Religious Education.
Gearon, L. (Guest Editor) (2019) Special Issue of Religions 10 (1) on Religion, Security, Education.
Gearon, L. and Williams, E. (Guest Editors) (2019) Special Issue of the British Journal of Educational Studies, Writers and their Education, 67 (3), 283–289.
Gearon, L. and Williams, E. (Guest Editors) (2018) Special Issue of Journal of Philosophy of Education on Philosophy, Literature and Education, 52 (4), 577-777.
Gearon, L. (Guest Editor) (2015) British Journal of Educational Studies, Special Issue, Education, Security and Intelligence Studies, 63 (3) 263-411.
Tirri, K., (Finland) Campbell, E. (Canada), Gearon, L. (UK), Lovat, T. (Australia) (Guest Editors) (2012) The Moral Core of Teaching, Education Research International.
Gearon, L. (Guest Editor) (2008) Citizenship, Human Rights and Religion, British Journal of Religious Education, 30 (2) 93-108.
Gearon, L. (Guest Editor) (2006) Children’s Spirituality and Children’s Rights, International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 11 (2) 193-310.
