Nic Dickson

Dr. Nic Dickson is a part-time Research Associate at the University of Glasgow, holding dual appointments in the School of Health and Wellbeing (General Practice & Primary Care) and the School of Social & Political Sciences (College of Social Sciences). She is an active social researcher, educator, and artist specializing in visual methods for knowledge exchange with marginalized communities. Her work focuses on participatory, arts-based research approaches to engage seldom-heard populations, particularly in health and social justice contexts.

Her educational background includes a PhD from the University of Glasgow's School of Education (2023), an M.Sc. in Marketing from the University of Strathclyde, and an M.Phil. in Medical Education from Queen's University Belfast. Prior to her academic career, she spent over 15 years as a social researcher working with 'hard to reach' groups in both private and public sectors.

Dickson's research interests center on critically reflexive, creative, and feminist methodologies. She leads projects exploring experiences of people with multiple long-term health conditions in deprived communities (SysteMatic project) and South Asian women's conceptualizations of domestic abuse in Scotland. Her work emphasizes arts-based methods to capture narratives of marginalized populations, resulting in innovative outputs like public information comics.

Her publication portfolio demonstrates consistent focus on arts-based research with vulnerable populations, spanning health equity, domestic abuse, migration, and adult education. The publications reveal a methodological commitment to visual and creative approaches, with increasing emphasis on translating research into accessible formats like comics and graphic narratives for community impact.

Dickson is actively involved in the University of Glasgow's Laboratory for Civic Arts Research (LCAR) engagement training program and maintains a fledgling consultancy business (visualinquiry.co.uk) focused on producing creative content for academic and third-sector audiences. As a visual note-taker, she creates live sketches at conferences which are digitized for marketing materials for third-sector charities.

Her advisory work includes supervision of Houston, Craig on social connectedness and nature space research. She has delivered guest lectures on innovative research methodologies at the University of Glasgow and served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant on various master's programs in Education and Medical Education. Her current projects demonstrate strong connections between academic research, community engagement, and creative dissemination strategies.