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Paul Trowler supervises 56 postgraduate research students. If these students have produced research profiles, these are listed below:

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Professor Paul Trowler

Professor

Paul Trowler

County South

LA1 4YL

Lancaster

Tel: +44 1524 592879

Research overview

I am an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Society for Research into Higher Education (FSRHE). My full CV can be downloaded here. My work on Academic Tribes and Territories is well-known but my interests also range across many areas of higher education research and consultancy. I apply policy sociology and social practice lenses across domains of research and evaluation which broadly concern policy production and enactment in different higher education contexts. I work with an eye to making a difference: 'enhancement' is a key watchword. I have advised institutional leaders, higher education organizations and change agents in higher education around the world for many years. I am keen to enhance doctoral education and have several dedicated books and Xerte resources to do this.

PhD supervision

I supervise a large number of doctoral researchers from the Department's several PhD programmes. For this reason I can only consider supervising non-programmatic PhDs in my specialist area. This is summed up in my recent (2020) book Accomplishing Change in Teaching and Learning Regimes: Higher Education and the practice sensibility. Oxford University Press. Any research proposal must be directly linked to the issues and suggestions in that book. Please do not contact me directly about PhD supervision applications. For equity reasons all applications must be made through the normal application procedure: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/educational-research/study/phd/traditional-route-phd/#d.en.410253

Research Interests

Paul has researched, published and produced reports in the areas of:

  • Academic disciplinary differences and academic cultures (“Academic Tribes and Territories”)
  • Doctoral supervisory practices
  • Student engagement in higher education
  • Departmental leadership in higher education
  • The ‘teaching-research nexus’ in higher education
  • Cultures and change in higher education (“teaching and learning regimes”)
  • The enhancement of learning and teaching in higher education: policy production and enactment
  • Institutional change in higher education
  • Social practice theory/socio-material theory
  • Insider research and ethnographic research in higher education
  • Doctoral research into higher education
  • Supporting doctoral learning online
  • Centres for Excellence – evaluation studies
  • Scottish Quality Enhancement Framework – evaluation studies
  • Subject Centres – evaluation studies
  • Higher Education Funding Council for England – evaluation study
  • Strategic development in higher education institutions – evaluation study

Downloads of many publications, keynote talks, research reports etc. are available at academia.edu.

Paul was the initiator of and main organizer for the first three Higher Education Close Up conferences as well as a more recent one. These are devoted to fine-grained research into higher education. 

Profile

I engage in research, evaluation and development work with universities and higher education funding and policy bodies across the world, most recently in Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Chile, Italy, Norway, Australia and Ireland.

 

Current Research

Current Research and Writing includes:

Current Teaching

Director of HEREE Doctoral Research Programme.

Find out more about the programme: https://xerte.lancaster.ac.uk/play.php?template_id=1229

Module leader of two HEREE modules.

Supervisor to numerous PhD students

 

 

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