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Annual Report 1997: Research in the Department

• Research Groupings
• Research Grants 1996-1997

Research Groupings

The Department structures its research activity around several broadly-defined research groups which were defined explicitly in their present form for the 1996 Research Assessment Exercise. These have rich and varying themes, given the continually-renewed research community of about 150, the overlapping memberships of the groups, and their external collaborations within and beyond the University and the discipline. The main members of these groups are outlined below, and their research grants and published research output in 1997 are listed in the following sections.

The Geography of the Space Economy

This group includes Bob Bennett, Stuart Corbridge, Mia Gray, Alan Hudson, David Keeble, Ron Martin, and Linda McDowell. Some of its activities are linked to those of the ESRC Centre for Business Research, where David Keeble (one of its Assistant Directors) and Bob Bennett are particularly active.

The Geography of Development

Bill Adams, Bryon Bache, Tim Bayliss-Smith, Stuart Corbridge, Jim Duncan and Sarah Radcliffe create the core of this group, which has research interests in Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Melanesia.

The Human Geography of Europe

This group has research interests ranging across western and eastern Europe, including historical geography in France, and economic, demographic and political aspects of the region's geography. It includes Alan Baker, Bob Bennett, Gerry Kearns, David Keeble, Ron Martin, and Graham Smith, who has directed The Post-Soviet States Research Programme in Sidney Sussex College from 1993.

Historical and Cultural Geography

Alan Baker, Jim Duncan, Robin Glasscock, Philip Howell, Gerry Kearns, Linda McDowell and Robert Mayhew form this wide-ranging humanities group.

Medical geography and population history

Andy Cliff and Gerry Kearns together create this group, and provide an opportunity for joint research with the Cambridge Unit for the History of Population and Social Structure.

Environmental issues and policies

Bill Adams, Tim Bayliss-Smith, Stuart Lane, Susan Owens and Steve Trudgill form a group with interests in environmental issues in both industrialised and developing countries. There are close links with the activities of the University’s Committee for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, which is based in the Department.

Monitoring and Modelling Environmental Processes

This grouping includes Neil Arnold, Bryon Bache, Stuart Lane, Clive Oppenheimer, Keith Richards, Tom Spencer, Steve Trudgill, and Ian Willis. Tom Spencer acts as the Director of The Cambridge Coastal Research Unit, which was created in the Department in 1996 to investigate problems of coastal zone management.

Environmental Change

Neil Arnold, Tim Bayliss-Smith, Philip Gibbard, Clive Oppenheimer, Tom Spencer, and Chronis Tzedakis form this group, which is closely linked to The Godwin Institute for Quaternary Research. The Institute has initiated an inter-Departmental research project on Stage 3 of the Quaternary, which is providing a framework for collaboration within and beyond Cambridge; it has been planning further projects that may include one on volcanicity and climatic change.

GIS and Remote Sensing

Andy Cliff, Bernard Devereux, Clive Oppenheimer, Stuart Lane, and Keith Richards, together with Gareth Rees from the Scott Polar Research Institute, form a group with interests ranging from applications of a range of satellite sensors to epidemiological, land use, volcanological and glaciological studies to digital and analytical photogrammetry and terrain modelling.

Research Grants 1996-1997