David McGillivray holds a Chair in Event and Digital Cultures at University of the West of Scotland. His main research interests focus on a critical reading of the contemporary significance of events and festivals (sporting and cultural) as markers of identity and mechanisms for the achievement of wider economic, social and cultural externalities. He possesses research expertise and experience related to digital leisure cultures, focused on the affordances of the digital environment, especially related to understandings of digital citizenship, participation and the role of everyday digital media platforms and practices in enabling (or restricting) voices within an increasingly saturated media landscape. He has published extensively in the area of critical event studies, and, increasingly in the realm of digital and social media studies. In recent years he has also sought to bring his research closer to non-academic publics, both in the research designs he has utilised (e.g. PAR) and in the dissemination of his academic outputs through public engagement and collaborative work with the beneficiaries of research. He is co-author of Event Bidding: Politics, Persuasion and Resistance (2017), Event Policy: From Theory to Strategy (2012) and Leveraging Disability Sport Events: Impacts, Promises and Possibilities (2018). He is also co-editor of Digital Leisure Cultures: Critical Perspectives (2017) and Research Themes for Events (2013). He publishes extensively in Leisure Studies, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, Sport and Society as well as across disciplines in journals including Urban Studies, Urban Geography and Disability & Society. He is currently Deputy Editor of the Annals of Leisure Research and a Visiting Professor at University of Hertfordshire, supporting the research development of the events and festivals team.