Professor John Harrison

PhD (Aberystwyth University)

Pronouns: He/him
  • School Associate Dean for Research & Innovation
  • Professor of Urban and Regional Studies

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 HorizonsRegional 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]