Dr Michael Gallagher

Senior Lecturer in Digital Education; Co-Director, Centre for Research in Digital Education

  • Moray House School of Education and Sport, IECS
  • University of Edinburgh
  • Centre for Research in Digital Education

Contact details

Address

Street

2.60 Edinburgh Futures Institute, The University of Edinburgh, 1 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, EH3 9EF

City
Edinburgh Futures Institute
Post code
EH3 9EF

Biography

Background

I am Senior Lecturer in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh, and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education. My published work includes critical perspectives on educational technologies, the mobilities of digital education particularly for marginalised groups, and futures educational research.

At the University of Edinburgh, I am PI on the Mastercard Foundation-funded project Practitioner Networks and Digital Inclusion for Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, PI on the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) funded Connected Policy, Practice and Accreditation: Connected Refugee Education in Ugandan Higher Education project, PI on the GCRF-funded Digital Education Africa cluster, Co-I on the Digital Education for change makers in sub-Saharan Africa project, Co-I on the Mastercard Foundation-funded Foundations for All project, and Co-I on the Universal Secondary Education in Asia Pacific project. I was a core team member of the Future University Lab at Una Europa (2019-2023). I am part of a research team exploring refugee contexts and higher education in 12 pilot countries through the Connected Learning in Crisis Consortium and UNHCR. 

I was the PI on the Exploring the Teacher Function: Continuing Interventions in Automated Teaching project, was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, and was formerly part of the NERC Research for Emergency Aftershock Response project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, Korea. I am also Chief Digital Education Officer and Co-Founder of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to appropriate use of educational technologies in developing contexts.

My research focuses on the critical examination of the mobilities exhibited by groups and sectors in flux and how technology is used to both structure and manage these mobilities. Post-Brexit, with greater concentrations of international students, displaced peoples, and refugees, with the unbundling of labour and education, with a global edtech regime emerging in developing contexts that can unmoor local educational expertise and displace higher education as a vehicle for social mobility, this research focuses on frameworks to investigate these movements holistically and to begin to address the larger intractable challenges that may stunt educational progress in development contexts. I routinely employ mobilities frameworks to identify “the distribution of agency between people, places, and material assemblages of connectivity” (Sheller, 2017) and the role digital education might serve in an increasingly unbundled intersectional environment.

I have years of experience working with digital education in development contexts throughout Africa, South Asia, and East Asia, including sitting on the Advisory Board of one such university in Nigeria; years of experience working with faculty and students in universities as both instructor and supervisor, including on the MSc in Digital Education as Programme Director (2020-2024); and capacity for cross-sector knowledge exchange from consulting experience with relevant industries such as DfID, USAID, GIZ, World Bank, British Council, UNHCR, UN Habitat, and more. I am a Fellow in the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), in keeping with the requirements of the UK Professional Standards Framework.

CV

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Qualifications

PhD: University College London, Education

MSc: University of Edinburgh, Digital Education

MSc: Drexel University, Information Science

BSc: Wright State University, Education

Responsibilities & affiliations

Programme Director of the MSc in Digital Education (2020-2024)

Co-Director, Centre for Research in Digital Education, University of Edinburgh

Advisory Council Member: Beni American University (Nigeria)

Advisory Committee, Education Beyond Borders

External Examiner, University of Oxford (2021-2025)

Chief Education Officer and Co-Founder, Panoply Digital

Member, Comparative Education and International Development (CEID) Research Group

Postgraduate teaching

I teach on the MSc in Digital Education at Moray House School of Education and Sport.

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Areas of interest for supervision

I welcome enquiries about PhD supervision in the following areas:

  1. Critical studies of educational technology in developing contexts/emerging economies
  2. Critical studies on broadening access to higher education for marginalised groups in developing contexts, particularly for refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and women.
  3. Critical studies of the intersections of national policy, global indicators of educational development (SDGs, etc.), technology, and educational autonomy in developing contexts.

Current PhD students supervised

  • Shikha Kumari (supervised with Dr Jeremy Knox of Oxford University)
  • Alli Spring (supervised with Dr Morgan Currie)
  • Narges Rohani (supervised with Professor Kobi Gal and Dr Areti Manataki)
  • Nicolas Ruiz (supervised with Dr Jen Ross)
  • Mei-Hua Yang (supervised with Professor Co Doyle)

Research summary

My research focuses on the critical examination of the mobilities exhibited by groups and sectors in flux and how technology is used to both structure and manage these mobilities. Post-Brexit, with greater concentrations of international students, displaced peoples, and refugees, with the unbundling of labour and education, with a global edtech regime emerging in developing contexts largely unmooring local educational expertise and displacing higher education as a vehicle for social mobility, this research focuses on frameworks to investigate these movements holistically and to begin to address the larger intractable challenges that may stunt educational progress in development contexts. I routinely employ mobilities frameworks  to identify “the distribution of agency between people, places, and material assemblages of connectivity” (Sheller, 2017) and the role digital education might serve in an increasingly unbundled intersectional environment. Currently, all of that is expressed in two interrelated strands of research

  1. Working with Ministries of Education in Sub-Saharan Africa to help with their capacity to deal with contentious educational technology (AI, etc.) through futures methodologies

  2. Building inclusive pathways for refugees to get into and succeed in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa

Current research interests

digital futures, digital education in the Global South, forcible displacement, mobilities, policy, SDGs

Knowledge exchange

Recent presentations, seminars, and knowledge exchange events include the following:

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

  • Gallagher, M. (PI) (2023-2030). Practitioner Networks and Digital Inclusion. As one of the three work packages for the larger University of Edinburgh Mastercard Foundation project, this project will create practitioner networks and digital capacity building for universities in Sub-Saharan Africa particularly for greater inclusion of those traditionally underrepresented in higher education: women, forcibly displaced populations, and those with disabilities.  Funded by the Mastercard Foundation for £1,047,895.
  • Gallagher, M. (Co-I) (2024-2026). Generative AI for Accelerated Competency-Based Teacher Training in Crisis Contexts (GAI-ACT). This initiative aims to build refugee teachers' capacity under AEP to leverage Generative AI for improved teaching and learning. Our goals include creating an Accelerated Competency-Based Teacher Training programme for curriculum instruction in AEP. This will increase the capacity for utilisation of Generative AI in curriculum delivery, prompt engineering for dynamic and equitable curriculum delivery, and robust digital literacy practices. £15,500.
  • Gallagher, M. (PI) (2023-2025). Connected Policy, Practice, and Accreditation: Connected refugee education in Ugandan higher education. This project looks to operationalise the salient findings from recent research on refugee students in higher education in Uganda. It looks to do so by drawing together a network of universities, civil society actors, and refugee students to begin to articulate a shared framework of support for these students particularly as it aligns with the Higher Education Certificate, an accredited body of study offered by five universities designed to widen participation for refugee students. Funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh for £19,758.
  • Knox, J. & Gallagher, M (Co-I). (2022-2025). Digital Education for edtech policymakers from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. A three-year project to work with 16 policymakers from four African countries on the MSc in Digital Education. Funded by the British Council for £300,000.
  • Gallagher, M. (2019-Present). Digital Education Research Cluster in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda
  • Bayne, S. & Gallagher, M. (2020-2023). Future University Lab: UNA Europa
  • Falisse, J., Gallagher, M. (Co-I), Symons, K. & Cole, G. (2019-2022). FFA: Foundations for All
  • Gallagher, M. (Co-I), Najjuma, D. R. & Nambi, D. R. (2021-2022). Refugee access and participation in higher education in Uganda 
  • Gallagher, M. (PI) & Breines, M. (2019-2020). Exploring the Teacher Function: Continuing Interventions in Automated Teaching
  • Knox, J., Gallagher, M. & Lamb, J. (2019-2020). Hacking the Distance Learning Experience: student-led technology development.
  • Bayne, S. & Gallagher, M. (2017-2019). Near Future Teaching
  • Bayne, S. & Gallagher, M. (2016-2017). Research for Emergency Aftershock Response (GCRF-REAR)
  • Smith, W., Manns, M., Joshi, D., Mousumi, M., Clarke, P., Raya, R., Batkhuyag, B., Sabeti, S., Gallagher, M (Co-I). & Grek, S. Universal Secondary Education in the Asia Pacific Region

Current project grants

Gallagher, M. (PI) (2023-2030). Practitioner Networks and Digital Inclusion. As one of the three work packages for the larger University of Edinburgh Mastercard Foundation project, this project will create practitioner networks and digital capacity building for universities in Sub-Saharan Africa particularly for greater inclusion of those traditionally underrepresented in higher education: women, forcibly displaced populations, and those with disabilities. Funded by the Mastercard Foundation for £1,047,895.

Gallagher, M. (Co-I) (2024-2026). Generative AI for Accelerated Competency-Based Teacher Training in Crisis Contexts (GAI-ACT). This initiative aims to build refugee teachers' capacity under AEP to leverage Generative AI for improved teaching and learning. Our goals include creating an Accelerated Competency-Based Teacher Training programme for curriculum instruction in AEP. This will increase the capacity for utilisation of Generative AI in curriculum delivery, prompt engineering for dynamic and equitable curriculum delivery, and robust digital literacy practices. £15,500.

Gallagher, M. (PI) (2023-2025). Connected Policy, Practice, and Accreditation: Connected refugee education in Ugandan higher education. This project looks to operationalise the salient findings from recent research on refugee students in higher education in Uganda. It looks to do so by drawing together a network of universities, civil society actors, and refugee students to begin to articulate a shared framework of support for these students particularly as it aligns with the Higher Education Certificate, an accredited body of study offered by five universities designed to widen participation for refugee students. Funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh for £19,758.

Knox, J. & Gallagher, M (Co-I). (2022-2025). Digital Education for edtech policymakers from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. A three-year project to work with 16 policymakers from four African countries on the MSc in Digital Education. Funded by the British Council for £300,000.

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