Prof Vicky Gunn joined The Glasgow School of Art as the Head of Learning and Teaching and Professor in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education in November 2014. Prior to that her academic career was at the University of Glasgow where she was Director of the Learning and Teaching Centre. She became a Professor of Learning and Teaching there in summer of 2014.

In terms of research, Prof Gunn was previously returned in the University of Glasgow’s RAE2008 - education panel and REF2014 - education panel. Since joining GSA in 2014, Prof Gunn’s research portfolio has been refocused around four key strands:

(1) Higher education learning within and beyond studio and study;
(2) Understanding visual arts learning and teaching through cultural theories and queer theory in higher education;
(3) Creative and collaborative policy design for arts higher education;
(4) Developing the historical imaginary to explore contemporary social and religious conflicts as a creative practice (particularly queering the medieval).

Vicky welcomes PhD applications in all four of the strands of her research work. Her current PhD students' work covers design education, medievalism, and queer visual culture and theology. Previous PhD students have done theses on interdisciplinarity in the Arts and Humanities, LGBTQ adult education, small group learning, and practical theology (at the University of Glasgow).

As a result, Prof Gunn’s research and teaching profiles reflect an eclectic mix of the Arts and Humanities as well as higher education academic development in general. She has been the research and education agenda lead on several, national-level, funded teaching excellence and enhancement projects. She has written multiple peer-reviewed articles, books chapters, project reports, a monograph, and academic journalism for the Society of Research into Higher Education and WonkHE. As part of this research practice, she has lectured in academic educational development in university and art school, inter-professionalism, medieval culture, and practical theology at university level.

Her latest funded project is a creative arts collaborative cluster looking at evidencing enhancement in learning and teaching in the creative arts within Scottish higher education. This multiple-institution project is scoping the territory of creative arts higher education within cultural ecology policy agendas with an aim to improving both an understanding of the educational outcomes of creative arts programmes and how impact of these programmes is addressed in policy. Latest briefings from this project can be found here: https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/current-enhancement-theme/defining-and-capturing-evidence/the-creative-disciplines.