About Tom
Dr Tom Parkinson is Head of Doctoral Programmes at the RNCM. With a background in music, languages and education, Tom’s work has focused on popular music education (PME),Turkish popular music, music education in Turkey, and higher education and forced displacement. Common preoccupations across much of Tom’s work are disparities in access to opportunity and resources in higher education, and the relationship between higher education, society, the individual and the state.
As PI, Tom has led research projects funded by the British Academy, the AHRC, the GCRF and Arts Council England.
Tom is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has served as an external examiner or expert validator at institutions including University College London (UCL), Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), Bath Spa University, The University of Chichester and KM Conservatory, Chennai. He chairs the Academic Development steering group for the Council for At Risk Academics’ (Cara) Syria Programme, which supports Syrian academics in continuing their academic work in exile.
Tom is always interested in exploring interdisciplinary synergies and keen to collaborate with like-minded colleagues from across the disciplinary spectrum.
Research
Research Areas
- Popular music education
- Popular music practice (songwriting, production, performance)
- Music and language learning
- Higher education in conflict, post-conflict and refugee contexts
- Internationalisation of higher education and music education
- Historical study of Turkish music education
External Research Roles
- External examiner (PhD), University College London (2025)
- Honorary Senior Researcher, University of Kent (2025 – present)
- Expert reviewer, visiting Fellowships Scheme, British Academy (2024 – 2025)
- Steering Group member, British Academy/VITAE Researchers at Risk scheme, British Academy (2024 – 2025)
- External examiner (PhD), Erasmus University Rotterdam (2024)
- Editorial Board member, Journal of Further and Higher Education (2024 – present)
- External Examiner (PhD), University of Liverpool (2023 – 2024)
- External examiner (PhD), University of Surrey (2023)
- External Examiner (PhD), Bath Spa University (2021 – 2024)
- Visiting Lecturer, University of Bergen (2021)
- External examiner (PhD), University College London (2020)
- Expert validator, Queen's University Belfast (2019)
- Expert validator, KM Conservatory, Chennai (2018)
- External examiner (PhD), University College London (2018)
- Chair, Academic Development Steering group, Council for At Risk Academics (Cara) Syria Programme (2017 – present)
- Editorial Board Member, Journal of Popular Music Education (2017 – present)
- Expert validator, University of Chichester (2017 – 2018)
- Visiting Lecturer, Istanbul Kultur University (2012)
Teaching
Research Supervision
Current supervision of PhDs:
- Lotte Evans
- Toni McGee
- Kevin John Samuel