Many congratulations to two of our colleagues who have been named in the top 50 cited authors in the field of Urban Studies. 

Professor Ade Kearns was 7th and Professor Ya Ping Wang was 49th in the world ranking top 50 scholars. They were among only eight scholars in the top 50 who were UK-based.

The analysis covered citations of all articles published in journals included in the ‘Urban Studies’ category in the ISI Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) database over the period 1990-2010, and was published recently in the journal Urban Studies.

Professor Kearns has been at the University since 2000, and has also served as Director of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) research programme on Sustainable Communities and as Director of the ESRC Centre for Neighbourhoods Research.

His work has examined the effects living in a city has on people’s outcomes in life, both through the type of housing they live in and the quality of their neighbourhood. He has also written about theories of social life in cities, including on social cohesion and urban tolerance. Much of his work has been focused on Glasgow, which he has used as a laboratory for social science, much like the early urban sociologists in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. For the past decade Professor Kearns has led the GoWell research and learning programme, which has been investigating the health and wellbeing impacts of area-based regeneration, assessing to what extent a variety of pathways between residential change and health outcomes are operational for those subject to urban renewal interventions.

In response to his ranking, Professor Kearns said: 'I am pleased that the research we have been doing in Glasgow has been recognised within the discipline. It shows that there is much the world can learn about life in cities from Glasgow, both the difficulties posed by the post-industrial era and about the ways in which the state and communities can work together to improve citizens’ quality of life’.

Ya Ping Wang is Professor in Global City Futures. His research focuses on contemporary Chinese cities, on topics of urban housing policy reform and housing development, social and spatial transformations, and rural-to-urban migrants and their living conditions. He is the author/co-author of ‘Housing Policy and Practice in China’, ‘Urban Poverty, Housing and Social Change in China’, and ‘Planning and Housing in the Rapidly Urbanising World’. 

Professor Wang’s research has been supported by many UK and international funding bodies, including the Research Councils UK (RCUK), ESRC, Department for International Development (DFID), British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

He is currently working on two major ESRC and China collaborative projects on urban transformations, one with researchers at the China Academy of Social Sciences, and the other with colleagues at Nankai University. Professor Wang will lead the GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (in Asia and Africa), a £7 million project supported by RCUK.

Urban Studies at Glasgow was ranked top of the UK assessment of research excellence in the subject of Architecture, Built Environment and Planning (REF 2014).

First published: 27 September 2017

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