Leslie Cunliffe is an honorary research fellow at the Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter. Previously he was a senior lecturer in art and art education. He ran the post-graduate secondary art education course and taught primary undergraduate main subject art students studio practice and art history.

His research interests and publications relate the following topics to learning how to learn in art education: assessment; Bildung; curriculum; cognitive and socio-cultural processes; the role of declarative knowledge in critical and contextual studies; deep ecology and sustainability; ethical, epistemic and creative virtue; different forms of knowledge; nihilism; philosophy of mind; types of creativity and creative grammar; the logic of procedural knowledge.

His publications have appeared in a range of journals to include: Innovations in Education and Teaching International, the Journal of Curriculum Studies, the International Journal of Art and Design Education, the International Encyclopedia of Communication, the Oxford Review of Education, the Journal of Aesthetic Education, the Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, the Journal of Empirical Aesthetics, and the International Journal of Education through Art.

He has given papers at conferences throughout the world. In 2009 he gave a keynote address on assessing creativity in higher art education at the M. U. S. E. (measuring unique studies effectively) conference in Savannah, US.  He has authored several chapters, and exhibited at many venues including the Royal Academy of Art, London. In 2005 he was visiting scholar in Helsinki.