Professor Michael Osborne

Professor Emeritus, formerly Professor of Adult and Lifelong Learning (School of Education)

email: Michael.Osborne@glasgow.ac.uk

R321 Level 3, St Andrew's Building, Glasgow

Biography

Research interests

Research interests

Professor Osborne's main interests in research and development are: widening participation to higher education, teaching and learning, and innovation in higher education, the VET/HE interface, international development, sustainable developed, community-engaged research, the role of Big Data in Education, and the development of learning cities and regions. He has worked in the field of widening participation for some 30 years, beginning with work developing and evaluating the first Adult Access courses to Higher Education in the former Inner London Education Authority.

Throughout his 17 years at the University Stirling, he was involved in a succession of externally-funded research awards in the fields of access to higher education, work-placed learning, environmental education, learning in SMEs and Learning Cities/Regions with funding from UK government departments and their agencies, the European Commission and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). This research included the development of Audit Tools for Stakeholders within Learning Regions (Indicators project under the Network of Learning Regions (R3L) programme) and projects that develop related Learning Audits for Regions (Lilara), and a Sustainable Network of Learning regions/cities (PENR3L); a major ESRC TLRP project on the Social and Organisation Mediation of University Learning (SOMUL). This work became consolidated within the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, which he established with Professor Jim Gallacher of Glasgow Caledonian University, and which he co-directed for a decade until 1997. CRLL developed an international reputation as of the world’s leading research centres in the field of lifelong learning. Also whilst at Stirling in 2004, he became European Director of the PASCAL Observatory for Place, Social Capital and Learning Regions, in collaboration with RMIT Melbourne. PASCAL emerged from the world of the OECD in learning regions and became a highly significant player in the field of place-based learning.

His most recent work has been directed towards the field of Learning Cities and Regions with a particular focus on the role of universities, Lifelong Learning for Work Transition in Mid-life, Big Data, Sustainable Development, and Teaching and Learning and Innovation in Higher Education.

Research collaborations

He is linked internationally to specialist groups concerned with lifelong learning in Universitas 21, and to organisations such as UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning and its International Institute for Educational Planning, the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association (DVV) and the Asia Europe Meeting Forum for Lifelong Learning (ASEM LLL Hub within which he convenes a research cluster on Lifelong Learning Policy). Through the umbrella of the 'Big Tent' network he has established collaborative links with a number of significant players in the field of community-engaged research in universities. These organisations are the Global Alliance for Community-based Research, Asia Pacific Community University Engagement Network (APUCEN), Centro Bolivianos de Estudios Multidisciplinarios (CEBEM), Commonwealth University Extension and Engagement Network, Global University Network for Innovation (GUNI), Living Knowledge Network, Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), Service Learning Asia Network (SLAN) and the Talloires Network. Together these organisations have produced a series of international communiqués on community engagement in HE, which have been disseminated very widely in Higher Education.

He has been an investigator in a number of projects funded through the UKRI and by the European Commission around the themes of teaching and learning in HE, big data, sustainable development and lifelong learning. In the UK he has worked with government departments and with a number of agencies including the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE) and National Association for Adult and Continuing Education (now the Learning and Work Institute). In Scotland he has worked with and for many bodies including Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. Through the PASCAL Observatory and the Centre for Research and Development in Adult and Lifelong Learning, he has worked closely with many individuals, universities and regions around the world.

Publications

Grants

Professor Osborne's most substantial current research commitments have been:

as a co-I within the Urban Big Data Centre, an ESRC-funded research centre which helps address the social, economic and environmental challenges facing cities. Within this project he is undertaking an Urban Research Project on Educational Disadvantage and Place in collaboration with Muir Houston, Keith Kintrea, Catherine Lido and Phil Mason, and has completed a further project contributing from Education to a contextual multi-media database based on a household survey of 2000 people in Glasgow, GPS tracking, lifelogging and analysis of social media.

He has also been the PI of the project, Strengthening Urban Engagement of Universities in Asia and Africa (SUEUAA), funded by the British Academy under its Cities and Infrastructure programme, part of the Global Challenges Research Fund, working with partners in Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, and as a co-I within the ESRC-funded Global Challenges Research Fund centre co-ordinated from the University of Glasgow, the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy, Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods, working with partners in Bangladesh, China, India, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, where he leads the centre's capacity strengthening work.

He was also the PI of a project funded within an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, Widening Regional Engagement of HE and TVET, working with partners in Hong Kong, Italy and China.

In recent years he has also completed research for the European Commission funded projects on communities of practice in lifelong learning programmes (DISCUSS) and on labour efficiency in tertiary adult education at universities (LETAE), and and a Scottish Funding Council supported project, Strengthening the Regional Engagement Role of Universities in Africa and Asia, working with collaborators in Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

His previously funded research has included: Scottish Higher Education Funding Council/National Health Service (Scotland) funded projects concerned with selection of students in medicine and Veterinary Science (WHAP and WHAN); EC-funded projects in the area of lifelong learning concerned with the development of audit tools for stakeholders within Learning Regions (Indicators project under the Network of Learning Regions (R3L) programme) and projects that develop related learning audits (Lilara), a sustainable network of learning regions/cities (PENR3L), the quality of Grundtwig networks (GINCO), a KA4 project developing a reservoir of best practice in Learning Regions (Eurolocal), a Grundtwig project on Quality in Learning Regions (R3L+), a KA1 project concerned with tertiary lifelong learning in mid-life (THEMP) and a DG EAC funded project on Innovation in Higher Education; and a major ESRC TLRP project on the Social and Organisation Mediation of University Learning (SOMUL). He has also been a member of the team managing the EC funded Tempus Project on Lifelong Learning in Palestine. He completed the co-ordination of a study of universities and regional engagement (PURE) in 19 regions around the world from 2008-2014, and has been co-convenor of a collaborative group within the Universitas 21 group on Research Universities and their Regions (RUR).

He has also completed research on the decline in adult participation in HE for the Department for Education and Skills in the UK, and co-ordinated a similar project for the Scottish Executive and conducted studies of the effectiveness of widening access policy and practice for the Scottish Executive and for Universities UK, and studies on the Supply and Demand for FE in Scotland, and an international review of short cycle HE.

Supervision

Professor Osborne supervises the following doctoral students:

Brittney Nathaniel: Non-Traditional Entry Routes to Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Inclusion in Access for Adults in New York State and Scotland

Nathaniel, Brittney
Non-Traditional Entry Routes to Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Inclusion in Access for Adults in New York State and Scotland

His recent doctoral students have been:

Peter Barton: My early attempts at CPR: Reviewing how novice clinical practitioners make sense of their first experiences of undertaking Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
Preeti Dagar: Creating Sustainable Livelihood and Inclusive Learning Opportunities through Skills Development in an Urban Neighbourhood
Rodolfo Farlan: Intensive care medicine’s resident-as-teacher workshops' impact on resident’s perception of their teaching skills
Archie Fulton: Participating in a drug and alcohol education at university as a trigger for transformative change
Gail Goulet: The Transformative Learning of Assessment through Service Learning in HE
Jose Sergio Hernandez Mendoza: The Wider Effects of Adult Learning on Subjective Well-being and Social Capital
Keneilwe Molosi: The Impact of the Remote Area Development Programme (RADP) on the Socio-Economic Development of the San: the case of the Gantsi and Maun Areas.
Samir Halliru: Examining the Extent to which Skills Acquisition Training Develops Young Adults Lifelong Learning Attributes in Nigeria
Chris McAllister: Learning to be lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered in Scotland: the power of older adults’ voices for reinterpreting adult and Lifelong Learning theory, research and practice
Colin Mack: Residential Segregation and Educational Outcomes
Grace Poulter: Does constructed learner identity reflect the reality of older adult learners currently engaged in higher degree programmes?
Mpoki Mwaikokesya: Undergraduate students’ Development of Lifelong Learning Attributes in Tanzania
Michael Sofianos: Entrepreneurial Education – Evaluation of current teaching methods, research on the attributes that motivate individuals to became entrepreneurs and investigation of the connections between these.
Douglas Sutherland: The transition of adult students to higher education: communities, practice and participation

Teaching

Following his PhD, Professor Osborne embarked on a career in adult education, first in the Further Education section in London, working for the Inner London Education Authority at South Thames, City and East London and South London Colleges from 1979 to 1989. At City and East London College, he taught Mathematics to returning adult students, including within some of the UK’s very first Access to HE courses targeted at Afro-Caribbean and Bangladeshi students. Later at South London College, he developed some of the UK’s first Access programmes in Sciences (specifically Food Studies, and Health, Biology and the Environment (HBE)). The HBE course was the first Access programme to be accredited by the London Open College. He was also part of the team that developed the Postgraduate Diploma in Access Studies at South Bank Polytechnic, and also whilst there was involved in researching Access to Maths, Sciences and Technology programmes for the Department of Education and Science.

In 1989 he became a Lecturer in Educational Policy at the University of Stirling, rising to Senior Lecturer in 1995 and Professor of Lifelong Education in 1997. At Stirling he developed a range of Access programmes both delivered internally and in collaboration with a range of FE colleges in central Scotland. At its peak in the mid-1990s these programmes contributed some 13% of entry to the university. He was also involved in developing a comprehensive part-time degree programmes in collaboration with many departments of the university, which was the largest of its kind in Scotland outside the Open University. The work included the development of a degree pathway in Adult Education, the only undergraduate programme in this subject in the UK in the 1990s.

He also, with the late Professor Jim Gallacher of Glasgow Caledonian University, developed the world’s first online Masters in Lifelong Learning, and with the late Professor Glen Postle of the University of Southern Queensland, the world’s first Masters in Technology Enhanced Learning. Given his background in the 1980s as a FE lecturer, he continued his interest in this area through the development of programmes of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees that incorporated the Teacher Qualification (Further Education) (TQFE), the professional qualification for FE lecturers in Scotland, for which he was the inaugural Programme Director. The TQFE programme at Stirling developed as both a face-to-face and distance learning programme for lecturers in the Highlands and Islands in the early noughties, soon began the preferred option for the sector with some 50% of staff opting for this qualification over that of other providers.

At the University of Glasgow, he has taught on the following programmes:

BA in Community Development - Lifelong Learning and Social Change

MSc in Teaching Adults and MSc in Adult and Continuing Education - International Issues in Adult Education, Curriculum Development in Adult Education. He has also been course director of these programmes and has convened their Research dissertation components.

He has been teaching since 2016/17 within the International Masters in Adult Education for Social Change funded through the Erasmus Mundus programme.

Professional activities & recognition

Grant committees & research advisory boards

2015 - 2015: University of Gothenburg, Advisor to Research Centre Grants Committee

Editorial boards

1995 - ongoing: Journal of Adult and Continuing Education
2010 - ongoing: Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education
2015 - ongoing: Revista Educacion a Distancia
2019 - ongoing: Journal of Developmental Education

Professional & learned societies

2012 - ongoing: Member of Advisory Council and Research Network, Asia-Europe Meeting Lifelong Learning Hub
2008 - 2014: Member of Executive, British Association of International and Comparative Education
2008 - ongoing: Member of Executive, Forum for the Advancement of Continuing Education

Selected international presentations

2012: UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning’s 60th anniversary seminar (Hamburg)
2013: Global HR Forum (Seoul)
2013: UNESCO Ist Global Network of Learning Cities conference (Beijing)
2014: Series of Keynotes for Australian Learning Communities Network (Frankston, Canberra and Townsville)
2014: Australian College of Educators (Brisbane)
2014: Finnish Association of Local Government Studies (Tampere)
2015: ASEM Forum on Lifelong Learning (Bali)
2015: Bulgarian Society for Comparative Education (Sofia)
2015: ASEM Forum on Lifelong Learning (Melbourne)
2017: Helsinki/Tampere Smart City Launch (Helsinki)
2017: Italian Learning Cities Network (Rome)
2017: 14th PASCAL conference (Pretoria)
2017: National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (Gold Coast)
2018: Turkish Association of Continuing Education (Izmir)
2018: ASEM Forum on Lifelong Learning (Wurtzberg)
2018: Pecs Learning Cities conference (Pecs)
2018: Non-Formal Education - Meeting the Challenges of the 20th century (Sofia)
2019: Learning Cities Forum (Taipei)
2019: International Conference on Research in Education (Seoul)

Supplementary

Member of Advisory Board of Scottish Open University, 2008-2014 Expert Adviser to the UNESCO Global Learning Cities Network, 2013-2014

Research datasets

Additional information

Consulting and advice

He has advised the EC in relation to the development of the new integrated lifelong learning programme, and the German government in the development of higher continuing education. For the EC he has been a consultant in the following in recent years:

Evaluation of the Jean Monnet Programme within the Interim Evaluation of the whole of the Lifelong Learning Programne
International evaluation of MOOC models (FutureLearn, OpenHPI and Leuphana) and of international campuses (Nottingham’s Ningbo and Malaysia campuses) as part of an overview of Innovation in HE.
Development of a pan-European framework for the competences of adult educators.

For UNESCO he has been a member of its Expert Group on the development of the International Platform for Learning Cities, which was launched in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Education in October 2013 in Beijing. The expert group advised on the Key Features of Learning Cities, which has been developed as an international benchmark. He was a keynote speaker at the event in Beijing, and at a number of subsequent events, including as a presenter at the 5th Global Network of Learning Cities conference in the Republic of Korea in 2018, and as co-organiser of a series of webinars in 2020 with the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) on the role of Learning Cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was advisor to a major project run by UIL and the International Association of Universities during 2020-2022 concerning the contribution of universities to lifelong learning. He is also co-Chair of the International Expert Group of the Asia-Pacific Alliance of Learning Cities.

He has carried out a number of consultancies for agencies including the Council of Europe, Universities UK, the Higher Education Academy, Learndirect Scotland, UNESCO and United Cities and Local Governments . He has been an adviser and evaluator of programmes at a number of universities around the world, and a keynote speaker at many international events. Recently this has included the following:

He was the only invited speaker from the UK at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning’s 60^th anniversary celebrations in Hamburg in 2012.
During 2012 and 2013 he was an invited speaker at a number of major events in Asia. This has included at the Global HR Forum in Seoul in a session sponsored by the Korean National Institute for Lifelong Learning, the UNESCO International Conference on Learning Cities in Beijing and two preliminary international consultative meetings prior to its launch in Hangzhou (China) and Jeju (Korea), and the Lifelong Learning Planet Forum In Gyeonggi Do (Korea).
He was a keynote at the City of Cork Learning Cities Festival in September 2013 alongside Irish Minister, Sean Sherlock.
He was a plenary speaker at the Global Universities Network for Innovation, World Congress in Barcelona in June 2013
He made a series of presentations at Consultations on Community Engagement and Social Responsibility in Higher Education in West Bengal, Delhi & Punjab in India at the invitation of the British Council, Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) and the UNESCO Chair on Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education in March 2014.
In April and May 2014 he made a number presentations in Australia as keynote speaker at Learning City events in Frankston, Canberra and Townsville at the invitation of the Australian Learning Communities Network.
He was a keynote speaker at the biennial ASEM Lifelong Learning Hub conference in Bali in March 2015 and at the annual conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society conference in Sofia in June 2015.
He was a speaker in March 2016 at Asia-Europe Meeting Rectors conference in Prague on the student friendly curriculum.
He organised the 13th PASCAL International conference in Glasgow in June 2016 on Learning Cities 2040.
He was a keynote speaker at an ASEM Lifelong Learning Hub conference in Boracay, Philippines in May 2017 on lifelong learning and the sustainable development goals.
He was a keynote speaker at the National Association for Enabling Educators of Australia conference in November 2017 on topic of lifelong learning education policies.
He was a keynote speaker at the conference, E-Technologies for Lifelong Learning in Izmir, Turkey in January 2018
He was a keynote speaker at the conference at the 5th International Conference on Adult Education in Chisinau, Moldova in April 2018
He was a keynote speaker at the conference at the 15th PASCAL conference in Suwon, Republic of Korea, in September 2018
He was a keynote speaker at the conference, Learning Cities and Culture Working Together, in Pecs, Hungary in September 2018
He was a keynote speaker at the conference, Non-formal Education - Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century, in November 2018 in Sofia, Bulgaria
He was a keynote speaker at the International Research in Education conference at Seoul National University, Republic of Korea in October 2019.
He was a keynote speaker at the Virtual Urban Thinkers Campus - Imagining Gurugram as a Learning City, in Gurugram, India in October 2020
He presented virtually the Lectio Magistralis on the occasion of the Celebration of the International Day of Education 2021 on January 25 2021 by the Learning City of Lucca.
He was the keynote speaker, virtually, at the Turkish Association of Curriculum and Instruction conference on the topic of Learning Cities in a Global Context, 25 March 2021
He was a speaker, virtually, at the University of Derby's Online Global Challenges Week on the topic of Learning Cities: Moving the lifelong learning conversation forward together with Rwandan Learning Cities Network contributors from the Centre for Sustainable Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods, Sebutege Ange (Mayor of Huye); Pierre Claver (University of Rwanda, Sebutege); Vincent Manirakiza (University of Rwanda, Kigali) - Derby, 19 May 2021
He was a panellist, virtually, at the VIème FORUM Mondial pour les apprentissages tout au long de la vie, reflecting on presentations made at the event - Paris, 2 July 2021
He was a presenter at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning/Asia Development Bank webinar, Lifelong Learning, Learning Cities and Smart Cities on the topic of Smart Learning Cities - 2 December 2021
He was a presenter, virtually, offering congratulatory remarks to the learning city of Yeong Dong, Republic of Korea during the Lifelong Learning Festival for its newly designated Learning City Declaration - 13 December 2021
He was a keynote speaker at the International Students Academic Conference at Yuanpei University of Medical Technology, Taiwan on the topic of Regional and Community Engagement of Universities, 25 March 2022
He was a keynote speaker at the 9th Nordic Conference on Adult Education and Learning on 19 May 2022 at the University of South-Eastern Norway, Tonsberg with a presentation, Lifelong Learning Research– Then and Now.
He was the keynote speaker, virtually, at the Virtual Conference on Educational Management & Leadership - Future of Educational Management & Leadership on The leadership role of cities in delivering SDG4 - British University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE, 28 May 2022
He was a keynote speaker virtually at Global Network of Learning Cities, Ansan International Forum on the topic of Global Citizenship Education - 7 September 2022, Ansan - Republic of Korea
He was a keynote speaker, virtually, at the 2nd Bulgarian Conference on Non-Formal Education with a presentation: Learning for global health in cities - Community resilience and the strengthening of learning – 14 October 2022, Sofia
He was the keynote speaker, virtually on 8 November 2022 at the Global Learning Festival webinar organised by the Australian Learning Communities Network, with a presentation entitled: An international perspective on the vital role of local and regional government as hubs for delivering SDG4.
He was a keynote speaker, virtually on the Leadership role of Local Authorities in delivering SDG 4 during the International Conference, Role of Adult Learning and Education (ALE) in the Development of Local Communities, in Chișinău, Moldova on 9 November 2022.
He was the keynote speaker at the 7th Doctoral Research Conference - British University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE, 8 July 2023
He was a virtual keynote speaker at the conference of the Rete Universitatia Italiana per l'Apprendimento Permanente with a presentation entitled, University Adult and ContinuingEducation in the UK – a historical and contemporary overview, at the Univeristy of Catania, 11 May 2024
He was a virtual keynote speaker at a seminar organised by the Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technology, National Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning, Iran on the topic, University Regional and Community Engagement, 11 June 2024

He is a reviewer of major grant proposals for the ESRC and the British Academy. At an international level, he is a reviewer for the SSHRC (Canada), including of their Research Centre initiatives and most recently he has been a reviewer of R&D Units for the European Science Foundation. He is a member of the Expert Review Panel of the Workforce Development Applied Research Fund (WDARF), a national-level research fund offered by the SkillsFuture Singapore Agency (SSG).

Academic and professional body membership

In the early 1990s he began several service contributions to the discipline.

He was Secretary of the Universities Association for Continuing Education in Scotland for 4 years. He has serves as the university representative on the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning (UALL), its Scottish counterpart (SUALL) and the West of Scotland Wider Access Programme. He has been a member of the Executive of the British Association of International and Comparative Education and the Forum for Access and Continuing Education. He has served on the Advisory Group of the Open University in Scotland.

He is an adviser to Glasgow Learning City.

Editorial Board

He is editor of the Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, and has been a guest editor previously of an issue of the European Journal of Education that focused on widening participation to education and the professional competences of adult education professionals, and of the International Review of Education on the theme of Learning Cities. He is a member of the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Adult Education, Revista de Educación a Distancia and Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung.

He edits a series of books for Manchester University Press around the theme of higher education and lifelong learning to which many eminent scholars in the field have contributed, including Darlene Clover, Chris Duke, Budd Hall, Peter Mayo and Rajesh Tandon.

Michael Osborne

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Professor Michael Osborne

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Grants

Supervision

Teaching

Professional activities & recognition

Grant committees & research advisory boards

Editorial boards

Professional & learned societies

Selected international presentations

Supplementary

Research datasets

2023

Additional information

Consulting and advice

Academic and professional body membership

Editorial Board