Bio

Richard is Director for the Institute for Future Cities at University of Strathclyde, Senior Research Fellow in smart sustainable cities and energy policy, Fellow of the Energy Institute, former Deputy Director of Fraser of Allander Economic Research Institute, and former Head of Energy Policy, Head of Digital Inclusion, and Head of Corporate Digital Strategy for the Scottish Government. Member of EI Fellowship Board. The Institute for Future Cities aims to improve the quality of human life in cities across the world through innovative research that enables cities to be understood in new ways, and develop novel approaches for the ways we live, work, learn and invest in cities. The Institute works in partnership with cities, business and government globally www.strath.ac.uk/cities/ Richard is a member of the UN Steering Committee for the Earth Observation Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Communities - and is participating in a European Space Agency programme to improve performance of geolocation services in urban areas. Richard led the EU STEP UP sustainable city programme - a partnership between Glasgow; Gothenburg; Riga and Ghent - involving cities, universities and commercial partners to create holistic low carbon energy strategies. He wrote the Sustainable Glasgow strategy - working with city and businesses to develop low-carbon solutions to make Glasgow one of Europe’s most sustainable cities, and contributed to the Heat and the City research programme focused on urban low carbon heating. Richard contributed to Glasgow's successful £24 million TSB Future Cities Demonstrator Bid and led creation of the City Observatory - deploying data to understand cities in new ways, including prediction of crime. He has over 15 years experience working in government, advising Ministers from all major political parties on a wide range of policy areas, working with national and international organisations to deliver government objectives - including membership of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smart Cities, and EU Commission's EU Smart Cities and Communities Roadmap and Finance Groups. Richard has created and taught a number of post-graduate courses- including the MSc in Global Sustainable Cities, and Energy Policy and Politics for the MSc in Global Energy Management. Adviser and speaker on future cities and energy policy Specialties: Future cities; Energy policy; Sustainability; Resilience; Strategy development; satellite data analysis; urban geolocation; systems analysis; Public policy; Programme management