Dr Marco Bohr

Marco Bohr is Associate Professor in Design and Digital Arts at Nottingham School of Art & Design. He leads the interdisciplinary research cluster Creative Practices, Methods and Analysis (CPMA), which sits within the Research Centre for the Creative Industries (RCCI). CPMA supports a community of more than 30 researchers across NTU, fostering a collaborative research culture that strengthens the university's commitment to creativity, innovation and real-world impact. The cluster supports researchers at all career stages, helping colleagues develop ambitious research projects, produce high-quality outputs and build interdisciplinary collaborations across the university.

Marco has worked in higher education for more than twenty years across the UK, Japan, Australia and Canada. Before joining NTU, he served as Postgraduate Programme Director for the Arts at Loughborough University, providing academic leadership across three MA programmes and leading curriculum enhancements that significantly improved student satisfaction and postgraduate experience outcomes.

At NTU, Marco contributes to postgraduate teaching through the module Advancing Research Design, which introduces students from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds to methods and methodologies in art and design. The module prepares students for academic and practice-based inquiry, reflecting his commitment to developing future researchers and creative practitioners.

Marco has supervised four PhDs to completion. He has examined doctoral candidates internationally as External Examiner and regularly serves as Internal Examiner and Independent Chair. He welcomes enquiries from prospective doctoral candidates and is particularly keen to discuss proposed PhD projects that align with his research interests, including photography, visual culture, political imagery, Japanese visual culture and interdisciplinary visual methodologies.

A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), Marco has extensive experience in curriculum design, assessment, programme development and quality enhancement across UK higher education.

Marco regularly contributes to quality assurance and academic governance processes across the sector as an External Advisor, External Academic Panel Member and External Examiner. He has substantial experience of programme approval, validation, revalidation and periodic review activities, underpinned by a strong working knowledge of the QAA Quality Code and institutional quality frameworks. Working with universities, colleges and collaborative partners, he provides independent academic scrutiny and strategic advice on programme design, academic standards, assessment practices, curriculum development and the wider student experience.

Marco serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the East Asian Popular Culture Journal and has presented invited research papers at institutions including Yale University, UC Berkeley, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, the University of Turku and Ritsumeikan University. As a photographer, his work has been exhibited internationally, including at Rencontres d'Arles, Musée de l'Elysée Lausanne, FoMu Antwerp, Art Tower Mito, Gallery 44 Toronto and the Pingyao International Photography Festival.

He has also contributed writing to and been featured by platforms including Photoworks, FOAM, Source, Photomonitor and TIME LightBox.

Marco's collaborations span Vietnam, Ghana, Kenya and Japan, bringing together researchers, practitioners and community partners to investigate visual culture, social change and public engagement. These projects include AHRC-funded research on visual activism and sexual diversity in Vietnam, as well as MRC-funded research exploring nutrition environments and dietary transitions in African cities through innovative visual methodologies including photovoice.

He has also been awarded a highly competitive Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), as well as a fellowship from the Japan Foundation, reflecting international recognition of his research in visual culture and photography.