Professor Moira Hulme is an education policy scholar with an international research profile, specialising in how government policy shapes initial teacher education, the accreditation of school-university partnerships, and the conditions that affect teacher recruitment, retention, and career progression. She directs the Pedagogy, Policy and Place research group at the University of the West of Scotland, where she serves as research lead for educational research. Her current work examines systemic pressures on teaching professionals, focusing on workload intensification, occupational wellbeing, and workforce sustainability. 

Research Leadership and Networks

Professor Hulme coordinates partnerships with education settings across southwest Scotland and leads collaborative research on teacher education and school improvement. She has over a decade's expertise in cross-national comparative education policy analysis, examining reform processes and their impacts across different systems. Before joining UWS in 2023, she held research positions at the University of Glasgow and Manchester Metropolitan University.

She co-convenes a UK and Ireland research network on teacher wellbeing, recently producing a cross-national collection for the British Educational Research Association: Should I stay or should I go? International perspectives on workload intensification and teacher wellbeing (2025). This collection brings together scholars from Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Alberta (Canada), Tennessee (US), and Victoria (Australia).

Prof Hulme is a member of the Pedagogy, Learning & Innovation Special Interest Group of the CARPE network (Consortium on Applied Research and Professional Education), an alliance of eight European Universities of Applied Sciences. The SIG fosters collaboration in educational innovation, curriculum development and international teaching mobility.

Current Research

Professor Hulme is currently leading two collaborative research projects. The first seeks to understand the causes of Challenging behaviour in schools and early learning and childcare settings in Scotland. Funded by the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), this study responds to concerning rises in violence and aggression among children and young people in education settings. The second, Leading in the Gap: How ASN Provision Shapes Primary School Leadership in Scotland, is conducted in collaboration with the Association of Heads and Deputes Scotland (AHDS) and funded by the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS). This study investigates how gaps in specialist provision are shaping the work of primary school leaders at a time when the number of children with Additional Support Needs is rising across Scotland. Together, these projects capture how the education workforce is working to maintain quality provision in the face of escalating demand, with key findings disseminated to practitioners and policymakers.

Recent Studies

In 2024, Professor Hulme led a major study on teacher workload in Scotland, in collaboration with Cardiff Metropolitan University and Birmingham City University, commissioned by the Educational Institute of Scotland. Utilising a comprehensive time-use survey of nearly 2,000 teachers, this research revealed substantial impacts of excessive workloads on teacher wellbeing, job satisfaction, retention, and career progression in Scottish schools. The findings have contributed to national policy discussions on sustainable working conditions in the teaching profession.

Also in 2025, she completed the research project Moving the Discourse from Problems to Possibilities: Contributing to a National ITE Strategy for Wales, commissioned by the Universities and Schools' Council for the Education of Teachers (USCET Cymru). This research examined how re-accreditation processes reshaped school-university ITE partnerships in Wales, contributing to national ITE strategy. 

Research Expertise and Approach

Professor Hulme's research expertise encompasses teacher education reform, professional learning, school leadership, and models of support for educator development. Her methodological approach combines comparative policy analysis with practitioner-engaged research, examining how policy processes shape educational practice across different contexts.

Her broader research portfolio includes investigations of school exclusion, literacy and numeracy strategies, wellbeing initiatives for vulnerable groups, cluster-based school improvement approaches, and support systems for newly qualified teachers across UK contexts. 

She serves on the editorial board of the British Journal of Educational Studies.

Academic Leadership and Mentoring

Professor Hulme champions practitioner engagement with research and has supported the development of professional learning pathways from initial teacher preparation through to doctoral study. She adopts a social practices approach to research capacity building, designing close-to-practice research projects that bring together early career, mid-career and established researchers to develop competencies from research design to publication and public engagement.

Professor Hulme leads the University of the West of Scotland’s Unit of Assessment 23 (Education) submission for REF 2029, with responsibility for developing the submission strategy and supporting research quality enhancement across the unit.

She has examined doctoral dissertations from the University of Oxford, the University of Exeter, the University of Melbourne, Lancaster University, the University of Strathclyde, and Oxford Brookes University.