At the University of Cambridge, Gilligan held lectureships in the Departments of Applied Biology (1982–1989) and Plant Sciences (1989–1995), Gilligan took up the position of Head of School in Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge from 2009 to 2013, Gilligan has a wide range of national and international experience at senior level in setting and monitoring research strategy and advising Government bodies on policy. He held Prime Ministerial appointments as Trustee of the Natural History Museum the public body that advises the UK Government, Devolved Administrations and Overseas Territories on UK-wide and international nature conservation. He chaired the Science Advisory Council of the UK Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs from 2011 to 2014 and served two terms as a member of the UK Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council from 2003 to 2009. and has been appointed by the UK Government as a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. with all recommendations being accepted by the Government, the crop science review for BBSRC in 2003-04 Gilligan's research in
epidemiology has led him to work at the interface between biology, mathematics and economics. He has published more than 260 papers and reviews, establishing and testing a theoretical framework to understand the dynamics and control of epidemics in crops and natural environments at a range of scales up to country-wide and continental. The methods for parameter estimation and economic epidemiology also apply to problems of human and livestock disease with Gilligan's team publishing an influential paper early in the Covid pandemic that contributed to changes in policy on the epidemiological value of facemasks. == Personal life ==