Biography

Alan Harding is Professor of Urban and Regional Governance and Director of IPEG. Previously, he held posts at the University of Salford, where he co-founded and co-directed the SURF Centre, Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool. He holds degrees from Middlesex University, the London School of Economics and Nuffield College, Oxford.

Research Interests

Alan is a recognised expert in local and regional governance, particularly in relation to economic development and regeneration, in the UK, elsewhere in Europe and in North America. He has led or taken part in a large number of applied academic and consultancy studies focusing on the way in which local and regional economic development and regeneration programmes and projects are conceived, promoted, delivered and evaluated, domestically and internationally. Clients for this work have included the European Commission, national Government departments, Regional Development Agencies, local authorities, other public agencies, charitable trusts and foundations, national research councils, private sector umbrella organisations and individual corporations.

Alan has been centrally involved in recent debates in England about the future of urban and regional policy and their relationship to the UK Government's plans to address spatial economic disparities. He advised the House of Commons Select Committee for Communities and Local Government on its inquiry 'Is there a future for regional government?' and is a member of the expert panel on Cities and Regional Development Policy for the Department of Communities and Local Government. His work has a strong international and comparative dimension. He serves as a UK representative of COST Action A26, a European Commission-supported network examining the role of metropolitan governance in promoting an optimal balance between economic competitiveness, social cohesion and environmental protection. He also advises the OECD's Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development on its work on the future of urban policy.

Within academia, Alan is an internationally respected urban political economist and analyst of sub-national institutional change in an era of globalisation. He has strong links to key academic networks in the UK, the rest of Europe and north America. He has authored a number of books, major reports, journal articles, book chapters and other publications (journalism, consultancy reports etc.). Most recently, he has co-authored and co-edited Bright Satanic Mills: Universities, regional development and the knowledge economy (2007) and Changing Cities: Rethinking urban competitiveness, cohesion and governance (2005). As an academic, he is best known for arguing that 'politics matters' to urban and regional development. His reputation rests, in particular, on the way he has adapted north American literatures on 'growth coalitions' and 'urban regimes' and translated them into an analysis of the way in which the mobilisation of different sectoral interests and levels of government in European contexts can help improve urban and regional fortunes. This work has been published in a series of international journals and books.

Alan is a regular contributor to popular and professional media. He has written extensively for newspapers and popular and trade journals and is regularly interviewed by representatives of the local and national print and broadcast media. He also makes regular contributions to professional and academic seminars and conferences, domestically and internationally. He serves as Treasurer and Co-Editor of the International Journal for Urban and Regional Research. In the past, he has advised the Mersey Partnership, the Northwest Development Agency, the British Urban Regeneration Agency and Parliamentary Select Committees on issues relating to urban and regional development and regeneration.