Peter completed his PhD in Geography at the University of Wales Swansea in 2005. His PhD focused on utopian practices at two ecological buildings, and spawned his longstanding interest in children's geographies, education and architecture. Peter worked at the Centre for Children and Youth at the University of Northampton between 2004-2007. He moved to the Department of Geography at the University of Leicester in 2007, becoming a Chair in Human Geography in January 2014.
From 2015-2026, Peter was Professor of Human Geography at the University of Birmingham. At Birmingham he held several leadership roles, including College Director of Internationalisation and Deputy Head of College, as well as School EDI Lead.
Peter joined Loughborough in February 2026 as a Professor of Human Geography.
In 2020, Peter was conferred as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and awarded the prestigious Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Murchison Award for his longstanding work on geographies of childhood and education. In 2022 he was conferred as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, in recognition of his research about children, young people and urban design/planning.
Peter was until 2023 Honorary Secretary of the Research and Higher Education Division of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). He was an Editor of Area and Children's Geographies journals. He was a founding member of the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), and was the Research Group's Chair from 2012-15.
From 2022-2026, Peter was an Executive Member for the £35 million NIHR School for Public Health Research. He was also the national Children, Young People & Families Programme co-lead, responsible for commissioning and delivering over £3 million of funding across 10 projects.
Peter has held Visiting Professorships at several overseas Universities, including RMIT (Australia), Linköping (Sweden) and UWO (Canada).
Peter is best known for his research on children’s geographies and interdisciplinary childhood studies. His work focuses on children and young people’s experiences of and interactions with environmental processes. He also publishes on geographies of education and architecture.
Peter is the author of 11 books and over 120 journal articles and book chapters. His work is often placed centrally within a so-called 'new wave' of childhood studies, focusing on questions of emotion, affect, materiality, memory and much more besides. At the intersection of these theoretical debates, he has developed a substantive interest in children's experiences of newly-built (and 'sustainable') urban spaces, in alternative education spaces, in environmental challenges and learning, in children's health and wellbeing, and in school buildings & environments.
Including his Executive Membership and Programme Leadership of NIHR School for Public Health Research, Peter has held nearly £40 million of research funding. Other recent projects include the following.
Transatlantic Platform (T-AP; ESRC/FAPESP/NRF), Co-I, 'PANEX: Adaptations of young people in monetary-poor households for surviving and recovering from COVID-19 and associated lockdowns. Awarded £405,000, duration March 2022-February 2024.
UKRI, Lead Co-I, 'Voices of the Future: Collaborating with Children and Young People to Re-Imagine Treescapes'. Awarded £1.6 million, duration August 2021-July 2024.
Leverhulme Research Fellowship, PI, ‘Plastic Childhoods’. Awarded £51,389, duration 2018-2019.
Peter has worked with a range of international, national and local organisations. For instance, he is currently advising national and local agencies involved in the delivery of large, master-planned housing developments in the UK about how best to include children and young people in their design processes. He also works with major global agencies such as UNESCO, UN-Habitat, WHO and UNICEF: for instance, he is a Coordinating Lead Author for UNESCO's International Science and Evidence Based Assessment of Education, as part of their Futures of Education Initiative.
Peter teaches modules human geography.
Peter has supervised 18 PhD students to completion and currently supervises a further 7. He has also acted as an examiner for 45 PhD students, examining theses in the UK and internationally.
Current Postgraduate Research Students
- Will Thurbin (Birmingham, started 10/2016, self-funded, part-time), ‘Architectural geographies of the UK custodial estate’
- Arooj Khan (Birmingham, started 01/2017, self-funded, part-time), ‘Young people and regeneration in Tilbury, Essex’
- Rammohan Khanapurkar (Birmingham, started 09/2021, ESRC DTP and Indian Government funded), “Lost in Silence: Reinterpreting the 1971 Liberation War and the Creation of Bangladesh through Children’s Geographies and Material Memories”
- Yuxin Gao (Birmingham, started 09/2022, self-funded), “Child-Friendly Cities in China”
- Clare Deal (Loughborough, started 09/2024, ESRC DTP funded), “Care Farming and Geographies of Transformation”
- Shilin Fan (Loughborough, started 09/2024, self-funded), “Children’s Play in Chinese Cities’
- Amy Linklater (Loughborough, started 09/2025 ESRC DTP-funded), “Digital Gaming/Gambling Harms and Students: Financial Literacy and the Transition to Adulthood”
Books
- Kraftl, P., Holloway, S.L., Cheng, Y. and Kučerová, S.R. (2026) Handbook of Geographies of Education. Cheltenham: Elgar.
- Kraftl, P. (2020) After Childhood: Re-thinking Environment, Materiality and Media in Children’s Lives. London: Routledge.
- Christensen, P., Hadfield-Hill, S., Horton, J. and
- Kraftl, P. (2013) Geographies of alternative education: Diverse learning spaces for children and young people. Bristol: Policy Press.
Journal articles
- Kraftl, P. (in press) Questioning relations in/and children’s geographies and childhood studies. Children’s Geographies.
- Kraftl, P., et al. (2025, online early) Starting with trees: between and beyond environmental education. British Educational Research Journal.
- Kraftl, P., et al. (2019) (Re)Thinking (Re)Connection: Young People, ‘Natures’ and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in São Paulo State, Brazil. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 44: 299-314.
- Kraftl, P. (2015) Alter-childhoods: Biopolitics and childhoods in alternative education spaces. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 105: 219-237.
- Horton, J. and Kraftl, P. (2006) “What else? Some more ways of thinking about and doing children’s geographies”, Children’s Geographies. 4(1): 69-95.