Academic Career
- 2025-onwards: Professor of Urban and Regional Studies
- 2024-present: Associate Dean (Research & Innovation), School of Social Sciences and Humanities
- 2016-onwards: Reader in Human Geography, Loughborough University.
- 2012-2016: Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University.
- 2006-2011: Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University.
Professional Responsibilities
- 2023- : Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Regional Studies
- 2020- : Board Member and Trustee, Regional Studies Association
- 2019- : Adjunct Professor, Hunan University, China
- 2013- : Editor, Urban and Regional Horizons, Regional Studies
- 2013- : Associate Director, GaWC
Prizes and Awards
- 2015: Vice Chancellor's Loughborough Academic Award of Excellence
2015: Jim Lewis Prize
2011: Routledge Regional Studies Association Award for Early Career Excellence
John’s research interests lie within the broad scope of political-economic geography, with a specific focus on the planning and governance of cities and regions. This work centres around three main themes.
Regions and Regional Theory
- The political construction of regions and regional spaces
- The relationship between regions, territoriality and relationality
- Theorising processes of regionalism and regionalisation
Urban and Regional Governance
- The uneven geographies of devolution and decentralisation
- City-regions and metropolitan regions
- Planning and governing cities and regions
Global Urban Studies
- Global city-region governance
- Researching globalization’s new urban form
- The practice of doing global urban research
John's teaching examines political and economic globalization with a focus on cities and regions.
Current Postgraduate Research Students
- Rui Ye: Rural gentrification dynamics under China’s rural land ownership reform
- Steyn Hoogakker: Informing just energy cooking transitions in urban informal settlements
- Naomi Tan: From energy modelling to funding applications: what dataset must we need to financially realize climate-compatible growth?
Recent Postgraduate Research Students
- Jiaying Xue (2025): Polycentric urban regions, regional innovation and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area [China Scholarship Council]
- Carla Cannone (2025): Enhancing energy planning in low- and middle-income countries
- Lingjia Zhao (2024): Rural planning in China: planning the new countryside [China Scholarship Council]
- Galland D, Tewdwr-Jones M, Harrison J (2026) Regions in Evolution: A History of Regional Planning. Routledge: London
- Xue J, Hoyler M and Harrison J (2025) Connecting geographies of innovation and polycentric urban regions through anchoring and mobility Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2025.2525987
- Harrison J and Gu H (2023) Arguing with megaregions: learning from China’s chéngshì qún Transactions in Planning and Urban Research 2(1) 53-70
- Harrison J, Hoyler M, Derudder B, Liu X and Meijers E (2022) Governing polycentric urban regions Territory, Politics, Governance 11(2) 213-221
- Harrison J, Galland D and Tewdwr-Jones M (2022) Planning Regional Futures. Routledge: London
- Harrison J and Gu H (2021) Planning megaregional futures: spatial imaginaries and megaregion formation in China Regional Studies 55(1) 77-89.
- Harrison J, Galland D and Tewdwr-Jones M (2021) Regional planning is dead, long live planning regional futures Regional Studies 55(1) 6-18.
- Sayin O, Hoyler M and Harrison J (2020) Doing comparative urbanism differently: conjunctural cities and the stress-testing of urban theory Urban Studies 59(2) 263-280
- Harrison J (2021) Seeing like a business: rethinking the role of business in regional development, planning and governance Territory, Politics, Governance 9(4) 592-612