Newcastle University

Congratulations to John Goddard, founder of CURDS in 1977, for winning the prestigious Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award at the Time Higher Education Supplement Awards (THES).

The Award, presented at a ceremony held at Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, is given to an individual who, in the opinion of Times Higher Education's editorial board, deserves to be honoured for his or her contribution to higher education above and beyond their own academic interests.

John Goddard is emeritus Professor of Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University UK.   He was previously Deputy Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for the University’s links with the city and region, in particular the development of Newcastle as one of the UK’s six Science Cities and the development of cultural quarter opening out the campus to the city. John’s academic background is in economic geography.   He founded and led the University’s Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) from 1977 to 1998 and directed numerous academic and policy research projects on the role of innovation in territorial development.

Within the UK John contributed to the Dearing Review of Higher Education through a Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals report on Universities and Communities (1996) and in subsequent work for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and Universities UK (UUK) on the Regional Mission of Higher Education (1999). Internationally John has been academic leader of an OECD programme now published as Higher Education and Regions:  Globally Competitive, Regionally Engaged (2007).  He has also led several reviews of regional engagement by Finnish Universities sponsored by the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council.

John currently holds a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship to enable him to prepare a book with Dr Paul Vallance on The University and the City and has recently completed a Visiting Fellowship at the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) working on the concept of the Civic University. Arising from this work he headed a study for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) scoping a Higher Education and Civic Leadership Development Programme. He has also worked with CURDS providing Peer Assistance to the joint Regional Development Agency (ONE North East) and North East Councils team preparing an Integrated Regional Strategy and been a member of the Lead Expert Group for a Foresight project on the Future of Land Use in the UK. Within Newcastle he is a member of the Board and Executive Group of the Business Improvement District, NE1.

Outside of the UK John continues to work with OECD on a third round of evaluations of links between universities and regions. He leads on behalf of the European centre for the Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU) an EU Lifelong Learning Programme on European Drivers for a Regional Innovation Platform (EU-Drivers) and is a Steering Group Member of a European Universities Association (EUA) programme on Collaborative Research sponsored by DG Research

John is a graduate of University College London, obtained his PhD form LSE and was a lecturer there from 1968 to 1975 prior to moving to Newcastle.  He was awarded an OBE in 1986 and the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1992, elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2004 and an Honorary Fellow of University College London in 2010.