David Mills is an Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE).
His current research focuses on the political economy of the global science system, and its impact on institutional research and publishing cultures in African universities. His most recent book is ‘Who Counts: Ghanaian Academic Publishing and Global Science’, co-written with colleagues from the University of Ghana and Oxford, and available open access from African Minds: https://www.africanminds.co.za/who-counts/
Trained in Anthropology, and with inter-disciplinary research interests, David uses ethnographic methods to study the inequalities created by global higher education. He is particularly interested in African university research cultures and the role of diamond Open Access scholarly journals within knowledge ecosystems.
He welcomes enquiries from potential doctoral students interested in studying African Higher Education, as well as research and publishing cultures.
Alis Oancea is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Research Policy and specialises in meta-research. She is also Social Sciences Division Advocate for Responsible Engagement, Impact and Innovation and coordinator of the Department’s Policy, Economy and Society Research Theme.
Alis studies research practice, policy and governance, higher education and philosophy of research – including research and innovation ecosystems, responsible research and innovation, research assessment, impact and knowledge exchange, research funding, research quality, evaluation, open knowledge practices, research ethics, capacity, publication practices, research careers and the cultural value of research in the arts and the humanities. Contributions to the integration and development of the field of meta-research include the collaborative production of the Handbook of Meta-Research (2024). This strand of work is complemented with a strong interest in teacher education research, knowledge and values in education, and the role of research in education.
Alis has two PhDs, one in policy and governance for research (from the University of Oxford), and one in epistemology and research; and is Doctor Honoris Causa (Socialium Scientiarium) of the University of the West, Timisoara. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
She currently leads a four-year ESRC/ CGHE research-on-research project of international scale, co-leads the Responsible Knowledge Exchange, Engagement and Impact project, is CI on a Research Culture project focused on contributorship and authorship, and Chief Editorial Advisor of Routledge Open Research (Education). She is Research Coordinator in Kellogg College, Oxford, and Deputy Director of the ongoing ESRC CGHE Centre for Global Higher Education (2024-2029).
Past leadership roles have included Director of Research and REF 2021 coordinator in the Department (2016-20) and Deputy Director for Research before that, as well as Senior Academic Advisor on Impact, University of Oxford. She was Executive Council member and trustee of the British Educational Research Association Council member of the European Educational Research Association.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
University leadership:
- Social Sciences Division Advocate for Responsible Engagement, Impact and Innovation, University of Oxford
- Director of Research, Department of Education, University of Oxford
- REF 2021 Coordinator, Department of Education, University of Oxford
- Senior Academic Advisor on Research Impact for REF2014, University of Oxford
- Research Practice Group member, University of Oxford
- Pro-Proctor, University of Oxford (2017-18)
- Research Theme Coordinator, Policy, Economy and Society (currently, also 2014-16)
- Director of ESRC CGHE Centre for Global Higher Education (2024-2029) and member of Research Management Committee, ESRC Centre for Global Higher Education (2019-24)
- Research Group co-lead, Philosophy, Religion and Education, Oxford
- Research Coordinator, Kellogg College, Oxford
- Deputy Director for Research, Department of Education, University of Oxford (2012-16)
Policy and funder reviews and expert groups:
- Co-author of the EC Policy Review on research assessment: “Report on Research Assessment”
- Member of the EC Expert Group on“Indicator frameworks for fostering open knowledge practices in science and scholarship”
- Advisor, The Real-Time REF Review, UKRI – Research England (2021)
- Advisor, The changing research landscape and reflections on national research assessment in the future, UKRI – Research England, 2019
- Lead of the BERA Observatory of Educational Research, 2015
- Lead of the evidence review on “The landscape of educational research in the UK (2010-20)” and of the 2018 report on ‘The capacity and impact of education research in the UK’ for the Royal Society and British Academy 2018 joint enquiry on educational research.
- Advisory group member, Equity and Inclusivity in Research Funding report, University of Oxford
- Member of the International Advisory Panel for the reform of teacher education in Norway, 2017-20 – see “Transforming Norwegian Teacher Education” report
- Member of the BERA/UCET Working Group on the future of educational research (2011-12), leading to the Prospects for Education Research report
- Member of the UCET working group on the Intellectual Base of Teacher Education (2019-20 and 2022-23)
- Member of the Planning Group of the UK Strategic Forum for Research in Education (2009-10)
Research(er) evaluation panels:
- Chair, Education panel, Science and Technology Foundation, Portugal
- Vice-chair of Education panel, Academy of Finland
- Chair of grant panels, Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education
- Chair and rapporteur, evaluation of impact of Joint Research Centre, European Commission (multiple years)
- Vice-chair, multiple Horizon Europe funding calls
- Member of steering panel, research centres competition, ESRC
- Member of the General Council of the National Committee for the Accreditation of University Titles, Diplomas and Certificates, Romania
- Member of the Peer Review College of the Economic and Social Research Council and of the Arts and Humanities Research Council
- External Examiner, MSc Science and Technology Policy (Sussex)
- Institutional reviews at University of Leuven, Belgium, University of Hong Kong
- Recruitment panels in different universities
Editorship:
- Chief Editorial Advisor, Routledge Open Research (Education)
- Joint Editor, Oxford Review of Education
- Joint Editor, Review of Education (2012-16)
- Lead Editor of BERA’s ‘Research Intelligence’ (2010-12)
- Editorial board member: Review of Education; Educational Theory (review board), Journal of Educational Sciences, Higher Education, Oxford Review of Education
Learned societies:
- Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK
- Elected Executive Council member and trustee of the British Educational Research Association (2009-12)
- Council member, European Educational Research Association (2011-12)
- Member of the Horizons2020 and Periscope Working Groups, EERA
- Convenor, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, Oxford Branch
- Member of BERA’s Academic Publications Committee
- Member of the Research and International Forum of UCET (ongoing)
Liam Francis Gearon (BA, Hons, MA, MPhil, Cert He, PhD, FHEA, FRSA, Docent) is Associate Professor in Religious Education in the Department of Education, Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford; Docent, University of Helsinki, Finland; Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK; 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.
Liam Francis Gearon is Founder-Convenor of the Philosophy, Religion, Education Research Group, providing a unique interdisciplinary contribution to the research culture of the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. The Philosophy, religion and education Research Group specifically forges 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.
A specialist in the interdisciplinary study of religion in education, and particularly noted for the systematic philosophical and history of ideas analysis on the epistemological foundations of religious education, his framing of the paradigms of religion in education – scriptural-theological; phenomenological; psychological-experiential; philosophical-conceptual; social-cultural; political-historical – has contributed new insights to secularisation theory in numerous, some award-winning, monographs, such as MasterClass 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).
His theorisations of the politicisation and securitisation of religion in education have been the subject of intense international debate for several years. Landmark publications on security in education – ‘The Counter-Terrorist Classroom’ (2013); ‘The Counter-Terrorist Classroom’ (2017); ‘Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Policy and Research in UK Universities’ (2018): ‘Research Ethics in the Securitised University’ (Gearon and Parsons, 2019) and ‘The Kill Chain’ (Gearon, 2020) – have enabled empirical, methodological and theoretical advances on elites’ theory, the ethics of security and radicalisation research (Gearon and Kuusisto, 2018; Kuusisto and Gearon, 2017; Benjamin, Gearon, Kuusisto, Koirikivi, 2021).
With cognate research interests in security across all phases of education, Liam has over a 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.
With a significant Academy of Finland research grant (2018-2022) with Arniika Kuusisto (Stockholm/Helsinki/ Oxford), we oversee 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 substantial quantitative and qualitative data gathered, the project has already produced a substantial number of quality research outputs (Publications | Growing up radical? | University of Helsinki).
With a doctorate in English literature, Liam has also drawn on arts and humanities theoretical knowledge and methodological approaches to advance what are now intense cross-disciplinary debates around ‘decolonising the curriculum’ in religious education. From a series of foundational papers addressing the relationship between religious education and postcolonial theory – Gearon (2001a) ‘The Imagined Other: Postcolonial Theory and Religious Education’; Gearon (2001b) ‘A Spirituality of Dissent: Religion, Culture and Postcolonial Criticism’; Gearon (2002a) ‘Human Rights and Religious Education: Some Postcolonial Perspectives’ – he has recently led an international team (UK, Finland, Sweden, South Africa) as Guest Editor of the British Journal of Religious Education, for a high profile special issue on religion and education in postcolonial context (Gearon, Kuusisto, Matemba, Benjamin, Du Preez, Koirikivi, and Simmonds, 2020).
As Principal Investigator, Liam has led funded research projects 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 exceeding £5,000,000, including a £4.5 million grant to establish a centre for citizenship and human rights at the University of Surrey Roehampton.
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.
Maia Chankseliani (EdM Harvard, PhD Cambridge) is an Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education at the University of Oxford where she leads the Comparative and International Education Research Group in the Department of Education. Her work explores the intersection of tertiary education and societal development, focusing on the institutional, policy, and social dynamics that influence higher education and its potential to drive transformative change.
With expertise in both qualitative and quantitative methods, Maia’s research combines the analysis of large-scale datasets with insights from interviews and in-depth case studies. She has authored several books on higher education, including What Happened to the Soviet University? (2022) and Building Research Capacity at Universities (2022), alongside earlier works addressing educational transformations in post-socialist societies and global fairness in access to higher education.
Currently, Maia leads a significant research project examining how international mobility contributes to world development, funded by the U.S. Department of State. She has worked on a number of externally funded research projects and consultancies involving the UK Government agencies responsible for education and skills, UKRI/ESRC, British Council, World Bank, Qatar Foundation, the European Commission, supporting both academic and policy development.
Her background in academia, policy-making, and consultancy—across various international contexts—enriches her ability to connect research with practical application. She regularly engages with governments and international audiences, contributing to policy discussions, and her work is frequently highlighted in global media outlets.
Maia currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Educational Research. In addition, she is the incoming chair of the UKFIET Executive Committee and is a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of Bahrain.
James Robson is Director of the Centre for Skills, Knowledge, and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) and Associate Professor of Tertiary Education Systems.
He also leads the MSc in Higher Education, and sits on the Research Management Committee and is CI of the Centre for Global Higher Education.
James’ research focuses on the political economy of Tertiary Education systems, bringing together key interests in the nexus of education and employment, the critical study of skills supply and demand, research eco-systems, access, social justice and sustainability. He has received major funding from the ESRC, the AHRC, the GCRF, the Edge Foundation, the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Office for Students and Research England.