PROFILE
 

Moira is Senior Lecturer on the Interdisciplinary Master’s, and Executive Director of NORRAG, Global Education Centre and Network. She conducts research and teaches on global education governance and its effects on national education systems and learner opportunities. Moira’s research programme investigates global education governance, combining international political economy with decolonial and relational frameworks to examine how material and epistemic hierarchies shape education finance, technology and sustainable development. She has published widely on global education governance, including multi-stakeholder partnerships, the political economy of education finance and technology, complexity and decolonisation, and improving the use of data and evidence in policy.  

Originally from Zimbabwe, Moira completed her PhD on global education partnerships at the University of Cambridge in 2014. She also holds an MSc with Distinction in international relations from the University of Southampton and a postgraduate teaching qualification from the University of Oxford.
 

THEMATIC EXPERTISE
 

• Sustainability, sustainable development & SDGs
• Knowledge, education & aid policies
• Politics of knowledge
• Development, cooperation, aid policies
• Business, enterprises & corporate responsibility
• Climate change & natural disasters

Current projects

• PI on an international research partnership investigating Innovative Financing for Education to Leave No-One Behind? We analyse how private-sector financing mechanisms reconfigure global and national education governance, with attention to how these arrangements constrain what education is possible and for whom.
• Corporate Power and Political Economy in Digital Education and AI examines how economic—alongside or instead of education—logics shape the governance and organisation of education globally. I investigate how corporate economic logics in EdTech platforms result in monopolistic behaviours that reorient educational technology firms towards rent-seeking practices, with implications for national education budgets and quality education.
• Education as a Leverage Point to Sustainable Futures, builds on my 2023 edited volume foregrounding systems approaches, to continue to examine the potential for education to serve as a systemic leverage point that could unlock broader sustainability progress.
• Drawing on futures methods—including horizon scanning, Delphi studies, and scenario development—I analyse potential trajectories of global education governance beyond 2030, integrating data to be collected through cross-sector expert elicitation surveys and participatory workshops.

PUBLICATIONS
 

Peer-reviewed articles

• Buckner, E., McCowan, T., Faul, M. V., Welply, O., Jiménez, J., & Denton, F. (2025) Higher Education and the next Sustainable Development Agenda. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 1-20.
• Henderson, C., Faul, M. V. & Joyner, A. (2025) Prioritising the ‘right to education’ in emergencies: Reducing the distance between human rights mechanisms and rights holders. Frontiers in Education, 10, 1621082.
• Faul, M. V., & Laumann, F. (2024). Complex interlinkages between the SDGs and their importance to Africa. African Journal of Sustainable Development, 14(1), 269-285.
• Karakulak, Ö., & Faul, M. V. (2024). Value creation for refugees by social partnerships: A frames perspective. Business & Society, 63(1), 18-59.
• Faul, M. V., & Tchilingirian, J. S. (2021a). Structuring the interstitial space of global financing partnerships for sustainable development: A network analysis. New Political Economy, 26(5), 765-782.
• Faul, M. V., & Tchilingirian, J. S. (2021b). Private sector representation, contribution, and potential influence in global financing partnerships. Development in Practice, 31(7),872-884.
• Oliver, K. and Faul, M. V. (2018a) Networks and network analysis in evidence, policy and practice. Evidence and Policy 14(3): 1-11.
• Faul, M. V. (2016) Why networks are hierarchical not flat; and what to do about it. Global Policy Journal. 7(2): 185-197.
• Faul, M. V. (2014) Future-perfect/present-imperfect: Contemporary global constraints on the implementation of a post-2015 education agenda. International Journal of Education and Development: 39: 12-22.

Edited volumes

• Faul, M. V. (2025) (ed.) Transforming Development in Education: From Coloniality to Rethinking, Reframing and Reimagining Possibilities. Edward Elgar.
• Faul, M. V. and L. Savage (2023a) (eds.)Systems Thinking in International Education and Development: Unlocking Learning for All? Edward Elgar.
• Andonova, L. B., Faul, M. V. and Piselli , D. (2022) (eds.) Partnerships for Sustainability in Contemporary Global Governance: Pathways to Effectiveness. Routledge.
• Oliver, K. and Faul, M. V. (eds.) (2018b) on Networks of evidence and policy-making. Special Issue of Evidence and Policy 14(3).

In preparation

• Faul, M.V. and Welply, O. (under review). Economic Growth, Modernity and Coloniality in Making the Anthropocene. Commissioned for the Encyclopaedia of Environmental Education: Politics within Local-to-Planetary Spheres. Bloomsbury.
• Karakulak, O. and Faul, M. V. Addressing Asynchronicity In Cross-Sector Partnerships Through Temporal Work. (under review at Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly)
• Faul, M. V., Laumann, F. and Barahona, M. Beyond Trade-Offs and Synergies: Expanding the Analysis of Sustainability Interlinkages. (submitted to Annual Review of Environment and Resources).
• Faul, M. V. and Komljenovic, J., Corporate Power in EdTech: Business Model Dynamics as an Analytical Approach. (to be submitted to Globalisation, Societies and Education May 2026)
• Faul, M. V. and Welply O. E., Beyond Public vs. Private: Hidden Logics of Power in Global Multistakeholder Education Governance (to be submitted to Comparative Education August, 2026).

Chapters in edited volumes

• Iyengar, R., Faul, M. V., Baxter, A., and Witenstein, M. (in press) Global Citizenship Education in Tertiary Education. Oxford Handbook of Global Citizenship Education. Oxford University Press.
• Faul, M. V., L. B. Andonova and D. Piselli (2026) Effectiveness. In Essential Concepts for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals: An A-Z Guide. Routledge.
• Faul, M. V., A. Numa Hopkins and B. S. Gabriel (2024) ‘What works’? Power and politics in research into evidence use in policy: A comparative bibliometric analysis. In The Rise of Knowledge Brokers. Edward Elgar.
• Andonova, L. B. and M. V. Faul. (2022) Effectiveness of partnerships: an analytical framework. In Partnerships for Sustainability in Contemporary Global Governance: Pathways to Effectiveness. Routledge.
• Faul, M. V. and Y. Boulaguiem. (2022) Faultlines within public and private sectors in global partnership executive boards. In Partnerships for Sustainability in Contemporary Global Governance: Pathways to Effectiveness. Routledge.
• Cremin, H. and Faul, M. V. (2011) Governing citizenship education. In Arthur, J. and H. Cremin (eds.) Debates in Citizenship Education. London: Routledge.

Reports, blogs and wider dissemination

• Faul, M. V., & Laumann, F. (forthcoming) Beyond Trade-Offs and Synergies: Towards More Accurate Analyses of SDG Interlinkages. Beyond 2030: What Role for Higher Education in the New Global Agenda? NORRAG Policy Insights #07. Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Joyner, A. and Faul, M. V. (2025) (eds.) The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus at 10. NORRAG Policy Insights #06. Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Earle, C. and Faul, M. V. (2024) (eds.) Meaningful Youth Engagement. NORRAG Policy Insights #05. Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Faul, M. V. (ed.) (2024) AI and Digital Inequities. NORRAG Policy Insights #04. Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Steiner-Khamsi, G. & Faul, M. V., with Baek, C., Numa Hopkins, A. and Iwabuchi, K. (2024) Improving the use of evidence for education planning, policy and practice. UNESCO.
• Terway, A. and M. V. Faul (eds.) (2023) Regional Models of Philanthropy in Education. NORRAG Policy Insights #03. Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Faul, M. V., Montes Ruíz, L. G., Lee, E. and Gabriel, B. G. (2023). Mapping the International Geneva Education Ecosystem. Working Paper #14. NORRAG, Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Faul, M. V. (2023) Education, technology and private sector actors: towards a research agenda. NORRAG blog.
• Gorur, R., Dey, J., Faul. M. V. and Piattoeva, N. (2023) Decolonising Data in Education: A Discussion Paper. NORRAG blog.
• Numa Hopkins, A. and M. V. Faul (eds.) (2022) The Digitalisation Of Education. NORRAG Policy Insights #01. Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Faul, M. V. and O. Welply (2021) Decolonising Education. Global Challenges Dossier 10, Decolonisation: A Past That Keeps Questioning Us, Geneva Graduate Institute.
• Faul, M. V, Terway, A., and Montjouridès, P. (2021) Education and the New Inequality Divides. Global Challenges Dossier 9, The Moving Fault Lines of Inequality, Geneva Graduate Institute.