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UCL Knowledge Lab

The UCL Knowledge Lab explores how we live and learn with technology and media.

Director: Professor Allison Littlejohn
Associate Director (Media/ReMAP): Professor John Potter

The UCL Knowledge Lab is a research laboratory working to reduce social barriers to knowledge, bringing together experts with imagination and insight from across different disciplinary backgrounds to undertake cutting edge research on digital media and technologies. 

The work of the the Lab focuses on the following research themes:

We centre multimodality and co-design as methodological approaches.

About us 

Our values
  • Innovation – we value interdisciplinary collaboration and pride ourselves on our creativity in developing innovative and participatory methods in multimodal, design-based and practice-based research.
  • Integrity – we strive for an honest and respectful approach in our interactions with colleagues, students and external collaborators and aim to conduct ethical research with positive and lasting impact on people’s lived experience.
  • Inclusion – we value diversity and are strongly committed to developing ways of working with technology which contribute to equity and social justice.
Background

The UCL Knowledge Lab extends the legacy of the London Knowledge Lab.

The London Knowledge lab was led since 2004 by Professors Richard Noss and Alex Poulovassilis as a collaborative initiative between educators from IOE and computer scientists from Birkbeck, funded by the Science Research Investment Fund.

In 2016 the collaborative initiative ended and the UCL Knowledge Lab was established. Our common legacy includes over a decade of interdisciplinary research funded by ESRC, EPSRC, AHRC, EU, JISC among others; a variety of knowledge exchange and public engagement activities; and a distinctive postgraduate training programme.

Our people

Director

Associate Director

Founding Director

Academic staff

Lab staff based at UCL East

Administrative and technical staff

Emeritus Professors

Honorary academics

20 Years of Knowledge Lab

This year we celebrate #20YearsKnowledgeLab. The Lab, based at Emerald Street in High Holborn, London, and hosted by UCL IOE is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading research centres in human learning, media and technology. It was established in 2004 as the London Knowledge Lab, a collaboration of educators from the Institute of Education and computer scientists from Birkbeck, initially funded by the UK Government Science Research Investment Fund. 

To celebrate our 20 year anniversary we are planning a number of events.


Research and activities

Find out more about current and past research from the UCL Knowledge Lab.

More about our researchers, publications, activities, groups and themes:

Join our events

The seminars are free to attend and are open to staff, students, alumni and the public. For booking instruction for non-UCL attendees, please view the individual event pages.

The Richard Noss Lecture is our yearly public lecture. You can view past versions of this event here.

We also host occasional Visiting Lecturers, guest academics, and collaborators with the Lab.

Follow the UCL Knowledge Lab Twitter for updates.

Consultancy services

We have substantial experience and expertise in carrying out consultancy and research projects for international, national, regional and local authorities and organisations including government departments, business and the IT sector, and voluntary groups.

Our services range from one-day training or staff development initiatives to longer-term research and evaluation work. Examples include:

  • The Future Classroom Toolkit: Innovative Technologies for Engaging Classrooms (European Schoolnet)
  • UK Scoping Report for the Further Education Online Academy (JISC).
  • 2030 Vision for using learning technology for STEM (Royal Society)
  • Piloting Media Assessment Framework (Scottish Qualifications Authority)
  • The Home Access Programme Evaluation (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency)
  • Automated Tutor Grading: 1 to 1 online tutoring to monitor tutor quality and learning outcomes (Third Space Learning)
  • Evaluation of UK Online Paediatric care (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health)

Study with us

Programmes

Join us and carry out post-graduate Masters, Doctoral and Post-Doctoral research on the design, critique and implementation of digital media and technologies for education and beyond.

Undegraduate taught

Graduate taught

Doctoral and Post-Doctoral research

We have an active programme of teaching and support for doctoral students with experienced staff offering research supervision across a range of topics and research methods, including: digital learning technologies; technology enhanced communication and collaboration; digital making, media and play; discourse, technology and the body; digital ethics, inclusion and diversity.

Further info: