Stephen Dobson was born in Zambia, grew up in England and has previously lived for many years in Norway. Prior to entering higher education, he worked for thirteen years with refugees as a community worker. Dobson's writing, teaching and research is published in English and Norwegian. It focuses upon assessment, ethnicity, educational philosophy and the practice of education. He has published poetry in Norwegian and his most recent books are Learning Inclusion in a Digital Age: Belonging and Finding a Voice (Springer Nature; co-editors Brit Svoen, Gabriella Agrusti and Pip Hardy; 2024), Transforming Assessment in Education – The Hidden World of Language Games (Springer Publishers; co-author Fuad. Fudiyartanto, 2023), Playful Science Investigations in Early Childhood. A Longitudinal Study (Azra Moed, Stephen Dobson and Sankari Saha; 2023), Assessing the Viva in Higher Education: Chasing Moments of Truth (Springer publishers, 2018) and Learning Cities: Multimodal Explorations and Placed Pedagogies (edited with Sue Nicholls, Springer Publishers, 2018),

He holds two PhDs, one in Cultural Studies and Refugees (Nottingham Trent University, 2000) and another in Assessment and Education (Institute of Education, University College London, 2008). A Magistergrad in Sociology (University of Oslo, 1990) complements his later studies.

He is Professor II at the Centre for Life Long Learning, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. He is fluent in Scandinavian languages and he co-leads the Erasmus+ project (2021-2023) Learning Inclusion in a Digital Age - with participants from Norway, Italy, Portugal and England. 

In November 2020, the Centre of Excellence - Educating for the Future was launched. Other collaborators included the Faculty of Educational Sciences (Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta), the Centre of Islamic Thought and Education (University of South Australia) and the Graduate School (Jakarta State University). In 2022, he co-established a Learning Lab to research higher education teaching and learning a joint Centre of Educational Excellence with Capital Normal University in Beijing and their Faculty of Education.

He is at the forefront of emerging educational trends and technologies through EU and Erasmus+ projects and through his advocacy of big data, learning analytics and social inclusion. The European projects are applied in character developing lifelong learning skills of disadvantaged groups (e.g. refugee, migrants and disengaged youth)

Research projects

Learning Inclusion in a Digital Age -to belong and Find a Voice in a Changing Europe (2021-2023)

Erasmus+ Project with Inland Norway University of Applied Science

Chief Investigator (640 000 AUS).

Innovative assessment methodologies for cooperative learning in primary schools (2019-2021)

Erasmus+ Project with Inland Norway University of Applied Science

Chief Investigator (273 000 AUS).

Reducing the Educational Gap for migrants and refugees in the EU with highly relevant e-learning resources offering strong social belonging (2017-2019)

Erasmus+ Project with Inland Norway University of Applied Science
Chief Investigator (388 000 AUS)

Developing online training resources for refugees. (2016-2017)

Erasmus+ Project with Inland Norway University of Applied Science
Chief Investigator (163 000 AUS)

Supporting life long learning through inquiry based education for low achievers 16-25yr. (2014-2016)

EU Project with Inland Norway University of Applied Science

Chief Investigator for Norwegian partners (900 000 AUS)