The Economic and Political Worlds Research Group specialises in the study of the nature of urban, regional and city-regional spaces and how they are shaped and transformed by different social, political, economic and environmental actors and processes.
Our members have contributed considerably to various theoretical debates and empirical understandings, critically engaging with discussions concerning the configuration and multi-level governance of such spaces.
Individual perspectives and research interests of the Group include research on innovation, economic development, and various aspects of urban and regional governance and politics, such as energy and voluntary sector bodies.
Influence and impact
Our research interests and ambitions are undertaken through involvement with a wide variety of networks, funded by a range of research bodies and often working with many different organisations. This includes funding from the ESRC on regional economic productivity; Volkswagen Foundation-funded research on regional development; NERC funding to examine resilience; Leverhulme Trust research on the corporate responses to Brexit; and research commissioned by the United Nations (UNECE and UN-HABITAT) on sustainable urban development.
Through this funding and the collaborations established, members of the Group have: developed new metrics for measuring regional competitiveness; utilised resilience concepts to identify key principles that can help regions to prepare for future economic crises; played a prominent role in the development of regional innovation policy at the EU level; and contributed to the development of the Cardiff City-Region.
Important areas of contemporary research activity include:
