Dr. Md. Shafiul Islam has been working as a Professor of Public Administration at Rajshahi University, Bangladesh for more than two decades. He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Good Governance from the School of Social Sciences at Rajshahi University in 2015. He received his Honours and Master's degrees in Public Administration from the University of Dhaka. He also received a Postgraduate Diploma in Education from the Institute of Education and Research (IER) at Rajshahi University. He was awarded the "Developing Research Project" certificate from the University of Southampton, UK, and a "Basics of Health Economics" certificate from the World Bank Institute.
He published more than 20 research papers/articles and 9 book chapters and attended and presented approximately 40 research scholarly papers at international conferences, seminars, and workshops both domestically and abroad.
He conducted 33 research projects (as team leader or co-leader) funded by UNESCO, the World Bank, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Administration, the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development, and Cooperatives, the University Grants Commission (UGC), Rajshahi University, BCSAA, BPATC, and other relevant organizations.
His research interests encompass governance, development, political economy, education management, curriculum, outcomes-based education (OBE), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), rural development, local government, and media, among other areas.