Norbert is Professor of Education and Vice-Dean Enterprise at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE), world-leading for education in QS subject rankings, with academic specialisms in the areas of educational technology, teacher education and development and language education. He has published widely and supervises postgraduate research students in these fields. His recent publications focus on human- and AI-mediated pedagogy.

He has held a number of substantive roles at university, faculty and department levels throughout his career including those of Pro-Director: Teaching, Quality and Learning Innovation at the IOE and of Pro-Vice-Provost Education at UCL. He has extensive experience in undertaking (externally funded) research and leading large-scale, system-level consultancy projects.

Norbert is also long-standing Editor-in-Chief of ALL’s flagship international, peer-reviewed research journal The Language Learning Journal published by Routledge (since 1999). Recent Special Issues of the LLJ co-edited by him include Language Education in the Curriculum: rethinking language education in the school curriculum in England and The OFSTED Curriculum Research Review for languages: what the research says and implications for policy and practice.

In his leadership role at the IOE he is chair of the Governance Board of the National Consortium for Language Education (NCLE) he recently convened a Symposium on AI and Language Education.

Since founding Independent Thinking in 1994, Ian has built a global reputation as an educational thinker, innovator, entrepreneur, speaker and award-winning editor and writer. He was listed by the IB magazine as one of their top 15 ‘educational visionaries’.

Never happier than when he is making children’s brains hurt, he has a unique first-hand perspective on the world of education having lived and worked in schools and universities in the UK, the Middle East, South America and Asia.

He is now sharing his time between Helsinki, where his wife is an international school principal, and their home in the middle of nowhere deep in West Wales.

He wasn’t always interested in exotic foreign travel and meeting interesting people from different countries, as he started off his educational career teaching French in Northampton. He didn't really want to be a French teacher and, while you would think not wanting to teach French to people who didn't want to learn it might be a match made in heaven, it was only ever really a stepping stone. His main ambition was to work with young people in the areas that most fascinated him then and in which he has become such an important figure today – thinking, learning, motivation, creativity and helping all members of the school community be the best they can be.