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Mark Axler recently completed a Doctorate in Social Practice at Nottingham Trent University. His thesis, a digital ethnography conducted under pandemic restrictions, explored how a school governing body collectively learned to govern through digitally mediated practices during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research offers a distinctive account of learning-in-governing, showing how governors learned through participation in online governance as they improvised and adapted their practices in response to unprecedented conditions.

Mark has contributed to research on educational governance, equity and social justice, with co-authored publications on alternative provision governance in the British Educational Research Journal and international school governance in the Journal of Research in International Education. In 2025, he also contributed to policymaking, co-authoring written evidence submitted to the House of Lords Select Committee on Home-based Working. Alongside and following his own studies, Mark mentored a fellow doctoral researcher over five years.

Mark also leads a consultancy he founded in 2005, supporting people and organisational change through research, learning, governance and evaluation. A Henley MBA and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Mark's experience spans a career in the British Army, followed by extensive consultancy work across the public, private and voluntary sectors. His wider research interests include governance, leadership, learning in practice and organisational socialisation. He is particularly interested in how people develop identities, legitimacy and belonging through participation in organisational and community life.