35th Anniversary
In 1977, on the initiative of John Goddard, the University established the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, to bring together for the purposes of research, academics and others interested in furthering understanding of urban and regional development problems.
Since then, amongst other achievements, CURDS has gone on to:
- Generate in the order of £30 million of research income from a wide variety of sources including research councils, central and local government, the European Union, charities and industry
- Engage over 160 staff, many of whom have gone to occupy leading policy and academic positions in the field
- Over 50 PhDs have been awarded for research conducted in CURDS and almost 100 people have graduated from our masters programmes
- In addition to John Goddard there are now 27 people associated with CURDS who have gone on to be awarded professorial positions, with six still at CURDS
- Ranked as one of the most influential places in the world for the study of economic geography, ranked second globally to UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) in terms of the number of highly cited papers in economic geography over recent decades (Foster et al 2007)
- In 2011 CURDS received the Regional Studies Association’s inaugural Institutional Award in recognition of sustained excellence in the field of regional studies
Hear more about the history of CURDS, from its founder Professor John Goddard.
A number of video testimonials have been produced which show the calibre of individuals around the world who have worked with CURDS over the years.
In addition, to celebrate our 35th Anniversary CURDS have produced A brief History (PDF: 3.3MB) booklet, providing a year by year summary of our research projects, publications and researchers.
