Professor Karen Fowler-Watt

Overview

Professor Karen Fowler-Watt is Head of the Journalism Department and Professor of Journalism and Global Narratives. A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE). Karen has extensive strategic leadership experience, nationally and internationally within the discipline of journalism and journalism education – both in the academy and industry. 

A key focus of her pedagogic practice has been the integration of trauma awareness and resilience training into journalism curricula. Her research focuses on building resilience in journalists, reporting marginalised voices, and re-imagining journalism practice, theory and pedagogy. Placing storytelling at the heart of her research, and working with former child soldiers in Colombia, she has collaborated with others to develop new methodologies for (re) telling difficult stories, that can contribute to peacebuilding in challenging contexts. An invited judge for national journalism awards (Royal Television Society and British Journalism Awards), Karen is widely published and speaks regularly at international conferences. She was recently commissioned to edit The Routledge Companion to Journalism Education and has led a range of funded projects, including developing online training resources for journalists working in hostile environments with Thomson Reuters and GCRF-funded peacebuilding projects in Latin America

As a former senior BBC journalist, Karen was an output editor for Radio 4 daily News and Current Affairs programmes and worked for sustained periods in the Middle East and United States. She has a particular interest in conflict reporting and retains dynamic, close links with industry.

As a Fellow of the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change and through working with Global Voices, BBC Media Action and as a trustee of the European Centre for Journalism and Trauma (formerly Dart), Karen promotes her commitment to education, research and professional practice that can effect change and support social justice.

Previously, she was Head of the School of Journalism, English and Communication at Bournemouth University, where she also led on cross-university initiatives for promotion and progression. Most recently, she was Director of the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice and research theme lead for journalism education in the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice.

Educated at Cambridge, where she graduated with a BA and MA in History, Karen was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to Harvard University for postgraduate research in politics and government. Her doctoral study at Southampton University focused on auto/biographical approaches to journalism education, with the BBC College of Journalism as a case study. Karen draws on this research and her own lived experience as a journalist and academic to put into practice the work that she has published on editorial leadership.

Qualifications

• BA, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
• MA, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
• EdD, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

Postgraduate training

• Harkness Fellow, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Employment

• Head of Journalism Department, City St George's, UK, August 2025 - present
• Director, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom, July 2024 - June 2025
• Head of School, Journalism, English and Communication, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom, July 2015 - July 2018
• Associate Dean, Journalism & Communication, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom, August 2007 - June 2015

Fellowships

• Fellow, Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change

Memberships of professional organisations

• Board member and Trustee, European Centre for Journalism and Trauma (ECJT)

Languages

French (can read, write, speak, understand spoken) and German (can read, write, understand spoken)

Publications by category