Role
Alan serves as Head of the Department of Economics and Professor of Economics and Public Policy. He qualified as an economics teacher in secondary education and after a spell working in that role he went on to undertake postgraduate training in transport engineering and planning. He was then employed by engineering consultants engaged in the economic and environmental assessment of road infrastructure schemes. He then moved on to Strathclyde University to take up a Research Fellowship in the Economics of the Greenhouse Effect (now termed Climate Change). Following his time there he took up a Lectureship in Economics in what is now the University of Portsmouth and progressed to Professor and Head of Department.
He has published extensively in the fields of cultural, environmental and social policy. Currently I am working on a number of projects relating to the trade in endangered species products; the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and firm profitability and the development of ‘smart city’ projects in Europe.
Alan has been Visiting Professor at Rhodes University, South Africa and also a Distinguished Research Fellow at the South African Cultural Observatory in Port Elizabeth. Currently he is President the Association of Cultural Economics International (www.culturaleconomics.org). Alan is on the editorial board of the Journal of Cultural Economics and has twice been guest editor of Urban Studies.
Career overview
Alan qualified as an economics teacher in secondary education and after a spell working in that role he went on to undertake postgraduate training in transport engineering and planning. He was then employed by engineering consultants engaged in the economic and environmental assessment of road infrastructure schemes. He then moved on to Strathclyde University to take up a Research Fellowship in the Economics of the Greenhouse Effect (now termed Climate Change). Following his time there he took up a Lectureship in Economics in what is now the University of Portsmouth and progressed to Professor and Head of Department.
On Thursday 29 November 2018 Alan delivered his Inaugural Lecture: Brexit, Endangered Species, Climate Change and Suicide: Informing and Misinforming Public Policy through Economics.
Research areas
Alan has published extensively in the fields of cultural, environmental and social policy. Currently I am working on a number of projects relating to the trade in endangered species products; the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and firm profitability and the development of ‘smart city’ projects in Europe.
External activity
Alan is a Visiting Professor at the University of Portsmouth and a past Visiting Professor at Rhodes University, South Africa. He is currently Distinguished Research Fellow at the South African Cultural Observatory in Port Elizabeth and also President-Elect of the Association of Cultural Economics International (www.culturaleconomics.org). Alan is on the editorial board of the Journal of Cultural Economics and twice guest editor of Urban Studies.
Sponsors and collaborators
EU PERCEIVE project on European Cohesiveness – Dr Adam Cox, Dr Alan Leonard (University of Portsmouth, UK) Dr Gianpiero Torrisi (University of Catania, Italy)
Ghost Ivory Project – Caroline Cox (University of Portsmouth)
South African Film Incentives Project – Professor Jen Snowball (Rhodes University, South Africa)
Rhino Conservation Project – Professor Gavin Fraser, Dr Juniours Marire, Prof Jen Snowball (Rhodes University, South Africa
Economics of Suicidality - Associate Prof Nikos Antonakakis (Webster University Vienna, Austria)