Department of Geography and Environment

Page contents > MPhil/PhD Geography Visiting Research Students | Taught programmes | About the Department | Staff and their academic interests | Opportunities for research

Taught programmes

• MSc Environment and Development
• MSc Environmental Policy and Regulation
• MSc Human Geography (Research)
• MSc Local Economic Development
• MSc Real Estate Economics and Finance
• MSc Regional and Urban Planning Studies
• MSc Urbanisation and Development

The Department runs a joint degree with Sciences Po, Paris:

• LSE-Sciences Po Double Degree in Urban Policy

Full details of all programmes are available at Geography and Environment|.

About the Department

The Department was ranked amongst the leading departments in the country in the 2008 Research Assessment Excerise. It has for many years been a recognised ESRC research training outlet (full-time and part-time).

The Department is distinctive in that it concentrates on the socio-economic aspects of the subject, places great emphasis on multi-disciplinary teaching and research and focuses strongly on policy relevant work.

Our research primarily takes place in three cluster groups which focus on: economic geography and regional science; globalisation, cities and development; and environmental policy, planning and regulation. The first and last of these are closely associated with two major externally-funded research centres: The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (incorporating the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy) and the ESRC Spatial Economics Research Centre. Staff in each of these groups have responsibility for teaching specialist master's courses, ensuring that students benefit from the most up to date understanding of the issues involved.

Departmental staff are also actively involved with the School's other interdisciplinary institutes and research centres (including the Centre for Economic Performance, Development Studies Institute, LSE Environment, LSE London, Media@LSE, Gender Institute, Urban Research Centre) and undertake collaborative research with colleagues in other disciplines.

The Department runs PhD programmes in Human Geography, and in Regional and Urban Planning. There is one research-orientated master's degree (in Human Geography (Research)) and a range of others focussed on developing the ability to integrate theoretical developments with practical experience. Staff come from a wide range of subject backgrounds. Most of those involved in teaching graduate students have a wealth of experience in working for, or acting as advisers to, a range of international agencies – including the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the European Commission, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Wide Fund for Nature – and governmental bodies in Great Britain, South Africa, China and throughout the European Union.

Staff and their academic interests

• Dr Giles Atkinson: Environmental policy and economics; sustainable development; green accounting.
• Professor Sylvia Chant: Development geography, especially Mexico, Costa Rica, the Philippines; gender; poverty; migration; women's employment; masculinities.
• Dr Sharad Chari: Historical ethnographies of capitalist development; politics of work, social space; 'race' and the commodity detritus; social theory; India; South Africa.
• Professor Paul Cheshire: Spatial aspects of economics, particularly urban economic growth in Europe; urban land and housing markets; land use regulation.
• Dr Riccardo Crescenzi: Economic growth; innovation; regional and local economic development; regional policy of the European Union.
• Dr Simon Dietz: Environmental equity; sustainable development; climate change and public perceptions of environmental issues.
• Dr Salvatore Di Falco: The intersection between environmental and development economics; econometric analysis of the contribution of natural resources such as biodiversity.
• Dr Steve Gibbons: Spatial issues in labour and education economics; econometric methods and their application to the analysis of spatial relationships; the valuation of school quality, community human capital and neighbourhood crime.
• Professor Ian Gordon: Spatial labour markets and migration, urban and regional development, particularly in relation to metropolitan regions, urban policy and spatial modelling.
• Dr Christian Hilber: the role of housing supply for investment in local public schools and social capital; the determinants and consequences of home ownership; the determinants and consequences of land use regulation or the determinants of firm and household location choices.
• Dr Nancy Holman: Urban regeneration, social capital, and network analysis.
• Professor David Jones: Socio-economic activity; environmental change and environmental hazards; hazard and risk assessment; environmental risk management.
• Dr Gareth Jones: Access to land and market deregulation; housing finance and NGOs; conservation and identities, especially Latin America, southern Africa.
• Dr Murray Low: Political geography, especially spatial aspects of democracy; urban politics, and geography of political parties.
• Dr Michael Mason: Environmental geography; theory and application of transnational environmental accountability; Canadian environmental policy; urban regeneration.
• Dr Carmen Marchiori: Environmental economics and development; water resource management and climate change.
• Dr Claire Mercer: Postcolonialism and development; diasporas; civil society and NGOs; sub-Saharan Africa; Tanzania.
• Dr Giordano Mion: Regional and urban economics; international economics; heterogeneous firms models; labour markets; applied micro-econometrics.
• Dr Susana Mourato: Environmental economics; environmental and health valuation (methods and applications); markets for ecosystem services; demand for low-carbon energy technologies; life satisfaction and the environment
• Dr Eric Neumayer: Trade and environment; sustainable development; green accounting; climate change; quantitative analysis of environment, development and governance.
• Dr Henry Overman: Location theory and urban economics; models of economic geography with emphasis on cities and regions; national and European regional policy.
• Dr Richard Perkins: The relationship between globalisation and environmental change; corporate environmentalism; environmental leapfrogging and energy transitions.
• Professor Diane Perrons: Economic geography, particularly cohesion in Europe, focusing on region and gender; flexible working.
• Dr Andrew Pratt: Social and economic geography in cities; localisation and social embeddedness of cultural industries in Japan, Australia, Europe, North America.
• Professor Judith Rees: Environmental regulation and resources management; water, including privatisation and economic regulation.
• Professor Andrés Rodríguez-Pose: Economic growth, regional and local development, and global restructuring in Europe and Latin America; regional devolution and regional disparities and policy in Europe.
• Dr Hyun Bang Shin: Contemporary urban (re-)development; urban governance; housing and social change; social welfare; transitional cities, especially in China; Korea; East Asia.
• Dr Olmo Silva: Spatial issues in the economics of education (such as school accessibility, school competition and neighbourhood effects); urban economics; issues in applied growth; entrepreneurship.
• Professor Michael Storper: Economic geography; globalisation, trade, location and specialisation; regional development in Europe, North America, Brazil.
• Dr Andrew Thornley: Urban planning; globalisation, world cities; city competition; Olympic Games.

Opportunities for research

We welcome applicants with good master's degrees to study for a PhD. We only accept PhD topics that are close to staff interests, so you should check our staff publications and current research agenda (our departmental web pages list key research topics). Broadly speaking this covers regional development, spatial economics, globalisation, geographies of development, urbanisation, and environmental economics, policy and regulation.

There are compulsory graduate programmes for new MPhil/PhD researchers in Human Geography or Regional and Urban Planning. Exemption from parts of the graduate programme may be obtained if you have already undertaken recognised research training. ESRC funded students will take the MSc Human Geography (Research|) as part of their 1+3 programme of study.

Most elements of the graduate programme are completed in the first year. It includes study skills, a research seminar series where postgraduates present their current research, a workshop where staff and students from London universities meet twice a year, and seminars where visiting speakers and staff present their work.

You will also take the seminar course Contemporary Debates in Human Geography or Contemporary Debates in Planning. You take relevant specialist MSc level courses to take you to the leading edge of the discipline in your first year, and you can select from courses offered by LSE's Methodology Institute. We emphasise supervisors and students working together on research design, strategy and methodology, and the timetable and plans for dissemination of the work. You will receive regular feedback on your work and your progress will be monitored by an annual review.

You should have a good master's degree (or equivalent) in a cognate field of study to your proposed research topic, with strong performance in the dissertation element, and have a background in geography or allied subjects such as sociology, anthropology, planning, environmental studies or regional science.

Selection is based upon the quality of your research proposal, references, prior achievement, and the appropriateness of your research to the department's research focus. We do not normally interview prospective research students so your written proposal is very important. Your proposal should be three to four pages long (excluding references and appendix) and can be emailed to the department for informal comment prior to your formal application.

It is essential that your research proposal addresses: research question; relevant literature and previous research in the field; likely methods and theoretical approaches to be adopted; likely information sources and an assessment of their suitability and availability. An outline three year research timetable must be included as an appendix. Applications that fail to address these points will not be considered.