Research

Research on AI and education.

I study assessment, academic integrity, governance, equity and trust in the use of generative AI.

Research agenda

My research areas.

  1. AI governance and organisational decision-making

    Moving institutions from broad principles to defensible choices and responsibilities.

  2. Assessment design and academic integrity

    Maintaining valid assessment while making permitted AI use explicit.

  3. AI-enhanced pedagogy

    Identifying where generative tools improve learning—and where they weaken it.

  4. Digital equity and adoption

    Understanding who benefits from AI and how institutions can reduce emerging inequalities.

  5. Synthetic media and trust

    Examining deepfakes, voice cloning and multimodal generation in education and society.

Selected funded projects

Selected funded projects.

  • Irish secondary schools and JMB. Co-Principal Investigator, UKRI ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, Durham University (£35,000): “From Framework to Practice: Implementing the AI Assessment Scale (AIAS) in Irish Secondary Education.” Collaboration with the Joint Managerial Body (JMB) for Voluntary Secondary Schools, Republic of Ireland, to expand pilot work on the AIAS nationwide through training, resources and evidence-informed approaches to K–12 AI readiness and assessment reform (2026–2027).
  • Bridging the Generative AI Divide. British Council International Science Partnerships Fund with Swansea University and Vietnam’s National Academy of Education Management (2024–2026).
  • SOARing to Successful Digital Transformation. British Council Going Global Partnerships project with Bournemouth University and Vietnamese partners (2023–2025). This project included a 10-site national workshop series reaching 450+ educators and administrators, with wider dissemination reaching 1,000+ participants.
  • Open learning and networking. UK–China BRI Education Partnership Initiative with partners in the UK, China and Vietnam (2023–2026).
Dr Mike Perkins presenting at the World Conference on Research Integrity

World Conference on Research Integrity, Vancouver, 2026

The AI Assessment Scale

AI Assessment Scale.

The AIAS is a practical five-level framework for deciding and communicating how generative AI may be used in assessment. It is open access for non-commercial use under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

Research profiles

Find my publications.