Department of Geography

Staff Profile

Professor Ray Hudson

Professor in the Department of Geography
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 41852
Fax: +44 (0)191 33 41801
Room number: 316

Contact Professor Ray Hudson (email at ray.hudson@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Ray Hudson has been a member of staff in the Department of Geography since 1972 (having been awarded a BA and PhD at Bristol University) and a Professor since 1990. Ray was Chairman of the Department from 1992 to 1997 and holds, or has held, various senior positions in the University (including serving as Director of the interdisciplinary Wolfson Research Institute, 2002-7) and is currently Deputy Vice Chancellor. As DVC he sits on Council and Finance and General Purposes Committee and on Senate and several its committee. . As DVC he  represents the University on a number of economic development organisations in north east England and on a variety of other regional and national organisations.

He has  served as a Vice President and Chair of the Research Division of the Royal Geographical Society (1999 - 2004), as Chair of the Conference of Heads of Geography in UK HEIs (1995-9) and on various ESRC committees and boards, including the Training and Development Board (2002 - 06). He is currently a co-director of FUSE (the North East Centre of Excellence of rTranslational Research in  in Public Health) and of nomis (the National On-line Manpower Information System), Chair of the International Advisory Board of WISERD (the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data And Methods) and a member of HEFCE's  Strategic Advisory Committee for Enterprise and Skills.

A political-economic geographer, his research has focussed upon economic geographies, processes of combined and uneven development, relations between corporate and state policies and issues of territorial development, He was one of a small number of geographers in the early 1970s who began to explore political economy approaches as an alternative to the then-dominant neoclassical location theories and statiistical modelling approaches. His more recent research has included work on the social economy, on relations betweeen legal and illegal economies, and on the relationships between economy and environment and processes of material transformation and value creation. His publications include Wrecking a Region (Pion, 1989), Production, Places and Environment (Pearson, 2000), Digging up Trouble: The Environment, Protest and Opencast Coal Mining (with Huw Beynon and Andrew Cox, Rivers Oram, 2000), Producing Places (Guilford, 2001), Placing the Social Economy (with Ash Amin and Angus Cameron, Routledge, 2002) and Economic Geographies: Circuits, Flows and Spaces, Sage, 2005).

His research has been recognised in a number of ways, including: a DLitt from Durham, a DSc from Bristol and an honorary DSc from Roskilde University;. He received the Edward Heath Award from and and was awarded the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society; and has been elected to the Academy of the Social Sciences, to the Fellowship of the British Academy and to the European Academy (Academia Europaea). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and of the Regional Studies Association.

His research has involved working with and advising  trades unons and  local, regional and national goverment organisations and has led to invitations to act as Special Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on Coalfields Regeneration and as an Expert Witness to the National Audit Office in its investigations into coalfield regeneration policies..More recently his research has informed and influenced policy making at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Research Groups

Research Projects

Research Interests

  • Economic & social regeneration in 'old' industrial regions
  • Economic Geographies
  • Geographies of the social economy
  • Relations between economy and environment
  • Regional & urban transformations

Selected Publications

Journal papers: academic

Books: authored

Books: sections

  • Hudson, R. The Costs of Globalisation: Producing New Forms of Risk to Health and Well-Being. In: Published:13-29.
  • Lane, C. & Wood, G. Regions, varieties of capitalism and the legacies of neoliberalism. Capitalist Diversity and Diversity within Capitalism. In: Routledge; 2012:189-208.
  • Hudson, R. Geographies of economic decline. In: Lee, R., Leyshon, A., McDowell, L. & Sunley, P. A Compendium of Economic Geography. Sage; 2011:261-272.
  • Hudson, R. Spatial circuits of value. In: Pike, A., Rodriguez-Pose, A. & Tomaney, J. Handbook of Local and Regional Development. Routledge; 2011:109-118.
  • Hudson, R. & Fischbacher-Smith, D. Exporting Pandora's Box - Exploitation, risk communication and public health problems associated with the export of hazard. In: Bennett, P., Calman, K., Curtis, S. & Fischbacher-Smith, D. Risk Communication and Public Health, OUP. Oxford University Press; 2010:245-60.
  • Hudson, R. The changing geographies of manufacturing and work: made in the UK? In: Coe, N. & Jones, A. The Economic Geography of the UK. Sage; 2010:139-152.
  • Hudson, R. Economic Geography: Fordism. In: Thrift, N. & Kitchin, R. International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 2009:226-231.
  • Hudson, R. Regional Development: Uneven Regional Development. In: Thrift, Nigel & Kitchin, Rob International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 2009:18-23.
  • Hudson, R. The Knowledge-based Economy, Public Policy and Regional Development: Lessons from the North East of England. In: Geophilia o sentir os sentidos da Geografia: Homenagem a Jorge Gaspar. Lisboa.: CEG; 2008:475-488.
  • Hudson, R. Firms as political actors in processes of capital accumulation and regional development. In: Taylor, M. & Oinas, P. Understanding the Firm: Spatial and Organizational dimensions. Oxford Oxford University Press; 2006:169-188.
  • Hudson, R. The New Economic Geography? In: Lawton-Smith, H. & Bagchi-Sen, S. Past, Present and Future of Economic Geography. Routledge; 2006:47-55.
  • Hudson, R. The production of institutional complemenrarity: the case of North East England. In: Wood, G. & James, P. Institutions, Production and Working Life. Oxford University Press; 2006:104-122.
  • Hudson, R. Geographers and the Regional Problem. In: Johnston, R. & Williams, M. A Century of British Geography, British Association for the Advancement of Science. 2003:583-602.
  • Hudson, R. Global production systems and European integration. In: Peck, J. & Yeung, H. Global Connections. Sage; 2003:216-230.
  • Amin, A., Cameron, A. & Hudson, R. The alterity of the social economy. In: Leyshon, A., Lee, R. & Williams, C. Alternative Economic Spaces. Sage; 2003:27-54.
  • Hudson, R. & Williams, A. Re-shaping Europe: the Challenge of New Divisions with a Homogenised Political-Economic Space. In: Fink, J., Lewis, G. & Clarke, J. Re-thinking European Welfare. Sage; 2001.
  • Hudson, R. Western Europe Studies: Geography. In: Smelser, N. & Bates, P. International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Pergamon; 2001:473-479.
  • Hudson, R. Globalization, National State Policies and Regional differentiation: the Case of the UK. In: Vellinga, M. The Dialectics of Globalization. Westview; 2000:235-256.
  • Hudson, R. Restructurer la region, restructurer l'Etat: le cas de l'Angleterre du Nord Est. In: Benko, G. & Lipietz, A. La Richesse de Regions: La Nouvelle Geographie Socio-Economique. Presses Universitaire de France; 2000:391-422.
  • Hudson, R. 'The learning economy, the learning firm and the learning region': a sympathetic critique of the limits to learning. In: Keating, M. Regions and Regionalism in Europe. Edward Elgar; 1999:341-354.
  • Hudson, R. & Williams, A. Re-shaping Europe: the Challenge of New Divisions within a Homogenised Political-Economic Space. In: Hudson, R. & Williams, A. Divided Europe: Society and Territory. Sage; 1999:1-28.
  • Hudson, R. The New Economy of the New Europe: Eradicating Divisions or Creating New Forms of Uneven Development. In: Hudson, R. & Williams, A. Divided Europe: Society and Territory. Sage; 1999:29-62.

Book chapters: online

Edited works: conference proceedings

  • Hudson, R. Material matters and the search for resilience: Re-thinking and urban development strategies in the context of global environmental change. University of Aegean, Lesvos.: International Conference, Studying, Modelling and Sense Making of Planet Earth; 2008.

Other publications: research

  • Hudson, R., Buckner, L., Cannon, T., Harding, A., Rees, P. & Kurowska, K. The impacts of demographic change on the functional; economies of the North of England. N8 and Northern Way, Manchester (iv + 35). Published.

Reports: official

  • Hudson, R. & Townsend, A.R. Coalfield regeneration, 1981-2003: Employment and Travel to work, Parts I and II. 2005;60, 53.

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Related Links

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

  • Economics: regional economic development
  • Economics: industrial change
  • Economics: Europe/European Union
  • Employment: practice in employment law
  • Economics & management: industrial change
  • Economics & management: regional economic development
  • Economics & management: political & economic restructuring in Europe
  • Landscape & buildings: mining for coal & metals
  • Landscape & buildings: quarrying
  • Landscape & buildings: conservation of geological sites, etc.
  • Europe: Business, economy & development: industrial change
  • Europe: Business, economy & development: regional development
  • Europe: Business, economy & development: environmental issues and sustainable development
  • Modern History: Europe: industrial change
  • Modern History: Europe: regional and urban development and regeneration
  • Social Policy: Employment & development issues: industrial change and its social consequences
  • Social Policy: Employment & development issues: regional and urban development and regeneration
  • Regional Economy: industrial change and its social effects
  • Regional Economy: regional development
  • Regional Economy: regional economy
  • People: Civilisation & land use: industrial change
  • People: Civilisation & land use: regional and urban development and regeneration

Grants Awarded

  • 2010: The impacts of demographic change (£18952.77 from One NorthEast)
  • 2006: WASTE OF THE WORLD (£1129357.00 from Esrc)
  • 2004: DURHAM-CMI KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE LABORATORY (£182986.00 from Cambridge-MIT Institute Ltd)
  • 1997: COAL DISTRICTS IN TRANSFORMATION (£10839.00 from Esrc)

Supervises