Michael Rowe

I am an academic, researcher, and teacher with a background in health professions education. I’ve spent almost 15 years teaching undergraduate and postgraduate physiotherapy students, while also building a strong international research profile.

At the same time I am a husband and father of two young daughters. For me, nothing in my life is more important than my family. Which means that I’ve made a decision not to work at night or on the weekends, as this gets in the way of spending time with my wife and children.

I am a co-founder of the In Beta project and the founder and previous editor of the OpenPhysio journal. I am currently the Associate Professor for Digital Innovation in the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Lincoln in the UK, and a Senior Fellow of Advance HE.

Before working in the UK, I was the Departmental Chair of Physiotherapy at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, where I worked to build a culture of calm productivity among my colleagues. I blog regularly on the topic of technology use in professional education, and sometimes share videos of academic work on YouTube.

The administrative and managerial workloads imposed on academics make it difficult to engage in meaningful scholarship. Administration is a necessary part of academic work, but it need not have such a high cost.

Academia can be a space for calm productivity and thoughtful engagement with the big ideas that move society forward. The Head space workshops, coaching, and courses are an attempt to bring some of that ethos back into higher education.