Group members
The Urban Research Cluster brings together researchers, from a range of disciplines across the Faculty of Social Sciences & Law, other faculties within the University and within the wider community, with expertise in topics connected to urban research, education and policy engagement.
Group lead
Dr James Duminy, School of Geographical Science
Research interests: urban development and governance in the global South, including the links between urban, food, and health systems.
Dr Jessica Espey, School of Geographical Science
Research interests: the international governance of sustainable development; the use of science and data in international policymaking.
Group members
Prof Sarah Ayres, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: the governance of place, space and territory; devolution and decentralisation in both a UK and international context; exploring the role of partnership working and network management in the governance of territory.
Prof Jonathan Beaverstock, University of Bristol Business School
Research interests: international business management, economic geography and migration studies.
Caroline Bird, University of Bristol Law School
Research interests: environmental sustainability, and more specifically, community action, energy and climate change and sustainable environments.
Prof Keri Facer, School of Education
Research interests: educational futures, digital cultures, university futures, engaged and co-produced research.
Prof Jon Fox, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Research interests: nationalism, ethnicity, racism and migration.
Prof Richard Harris, School of Geographical Sciences
Research interests: geographies of education and learning, the application of spatial statistics and geodemographics in marketing, public policy and urban geography.
Dr Anne Haase, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: individual and family-based theoretical interventions to lifestyle behaviour change.
Dr Stephan Heblich, University of Bristol Business School
Research interests: Urban Economics, Labour Economics, Political Economy and Economic History; spatial disparities in the distribution of human capital, innovative activities and entrepreneurship that explain differences in regional economic development.
Simon Hill, University of Bristol Business School
Research interests: housing, regeneration, land ownership, community-led solutions and alternative economic thinking
Dr Liz Holcombe, School of Civil, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Research interests: dynamic slope hydrology and stability modelling with a particular focus on urban landslide risk management in the Humid Tropics; engaged by The World Bank as Consultant Landslide Risk Management Specialist.
Prof Misa Izuhara, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: cross-national comparative research on Housing Assets and Intergenerational Dynamics in East Asian Societies, which is an ESRC funded project.
Dr Mark Jackson, School of Geographical Sciences
Research interests: contemporary and classical social theory, built & urban space and political ecology.
Prof Patricia Kennett, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: governance and social policy, cities and citizenship; Co-Editor of the ISI ranked International Journal of Social Policy.
Prof Antonia Layard, University of Bristol Law School
Research interests: how law, legality and maps construct space, place and ‘the local’; property, planning and environmental law.
Dr Su Lin Lewis, School of Humanities
Research interests: global and transnational history in the twentieth century.
Dr Helen Manchester, School of Education
Research interests: participatory, co-produced research with community and voluntary organisations and cultural institutions; space, place and future cities.
Prof David Manley, School of Geographical Sciences
Research interests: trying to better understand how the places in which individuals live interact with the outcomes that they experience over their life course.
Prof Alex Marsh, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: housing policy and the housing system, also touching on complexity and systems thinking, urban technologies, infrastructure and place-based leadership.
Prof Morag McDermont, University of Bristol Law School
Research interests: Housing Law and Policy and Social Theory.
Prof Bronwen Morgan, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies
Research interests: access to urban water services in comparative perspective, the rise of the regulatory state in the developing world, sub-national and local dimensions of climate change policy in developing countries.
Dr Colin Nolden, University of Bristol Law School
Research interests: energy and climate service business models; energy and climate policy; sustainability.
Prof Richard Pancost, School of Chemistry / School of Earth Sciences
Research interests: molecular and isotopic proxies for biogeochemical processes in modern and ancient sediments.
Dr Caitlin Robinson, School of Geographical Sciences
Research interests: the causes and consequences of different forms of spatial inequality, with a particular interest in energy, climate, and cities.
Research interests: the causes and consequences of different forms of spatial inequality, with a particular interest in energy, climate, and cities.
Dr Eric Saboya, School of Chemistry /School of Geographical Sciences
Research interests: evaluating and attributing regional-scale emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances; Bayesian methods for developing atmospheric inversion models; evaluating sources of methane emissions in London using carbon-13 & carbon-14 tracer measurements with an atmospheric model.
Research interests: evaluating and attributing regional-scale emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances; Bayesian methods for developing atmospheric inversion models; evaluating sources of methane emissions in London using carbon-13 & carbon-14 tracer measurements with an atmospheric model.
Dr Richard Sheldon, School of Humanities
Research interests: British history from 1700 to 1860, especially the history of radicalism and protest movements and the comparative study of famines and famine relief c.1700 to the present.
Dr Taru Silvonen, Bristol Medical School
Research interests: vaccination perceptions and uptake; participation, informal urbanisation, social cohesion and place-making in the context of urban disadvantage.
Prof Helen Simpson, School of Economics
Research interests: empirical analysis of firm location decisions, productivity, innovation and the effects of foreign direct investment; Applied Microeconomics and Industrial Economics.
Dr Robert Skinner, School of Humanities
Research interests: the social and political history of South Africa, and more specifically the relations between South Africa and the rest of the world over the course of the past century.
Dr David Sweeting, School for Policy Studies
Research interests: local and urban governance studies.
Dr Kevin Tran, School of Economics
Research interests: empirical industrial organisation; behavioural economics; digital economics (in particular the sharing economy and online platforms).
Dr Rui Zhu, School of Geographical Sciences
Research interests: spatial (urban) data science; AI; data interoperability; smart city; social sensing.
Research interests: spatial (urban) data science; AI; data interoperability; smart city; social sensing.