Graduate School

Geography research overview

GeographyThe Department of Geography at the University of Portsmouth was established over 40 years ago and is strongly committed to high quality research and teaching, as evidenced in the last Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008) and in the National Student Survey (NSS) results.

This means we can offer our students some of the best teaching and learning resources available anywhere, as well as staff with an immense depth and range of experience. Learning in this kind of environment is both stimulating and productive, developing a range of abilities and skills that are highly valued by employers.  We welcome enquiries from potential postgraduate research students.   Our individual staff webpages provide more details on potential research topics and individual staff research interests.

For more information about how to apply please contact the Faculty of Science using the Contact us page.

If you have any questions about studying for a research degree at the University of Portsmouth, please complete our enquiry form.

Key Facts

RAE Rating: Research based in the Department of Geography was rated 85% internationally recognised or above and more than 33% of our research publications were rated internationally excellent or world-leading.  Funding for our research activities stems from a number of organisations, including research councils, government agencies and charitable bodies.  In the last RAE, the panel noted that our income return was above the median for the Unit of Assessment as a whole.

Academic staff: 20, please see our staff list webpage.

Postgraduate research students: 11

Internal links: The Department has close links with the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES) and with staff from the School of Environmental Design and Management.  For our social science postgraduate researach students, research training is shared with the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies.

External links: Our staff collaborate in research activities with academic staff from many national universities (e.g. Universities at Durham, Warwick, Bristol, Southampton, Exeter and Nottingham) and from international institutions (e.g. in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Oregon, Colorado, Melbourne, Finland and Switzerland). We have close research links with agencies such as the Environment Agency, Countryside Council for Wales, MAFF, English Nature, HR Wallingford, Department of Health and the Home Office.

Resources

Research Areas

Geography of Health and Well-being

There has been a long tradition of research focused on health and well-being in the Department of Geography. Dr Liz Twigg, Dr Humphrey Southall, Dr Kate Jones, Dr Julia Brown, Dr Jo Horwood and Ms Paula Aucott (Senior Research Associate) form the core of the Portsmouth Health Group. Collaboration with individuals from other institutions and organisations is an important feature of the group's research and consultancy work.

Applied and exploratory research activities span a range of health agendas but the distinctive focus is positioned on the difference that place and geography make to health, health care, health policy and community well-being. The group undertakes and disseminates research into the above themes and provides undergraduate and postgraduate supervision in the geography of health, health care and community well-being.

The group’s current research agenda focuses on several themes. These include: Spatial analysis of large and complex health-related data sets to further understand socio-spatial inequalities in health; Multilevel synthetic estimation of health-related behaviours incorporating a geodemographics approach; Social marketing and smoking cessation; Iimpact of neighbourhood heterogeneity on quality of life; Role of the state and subsidies in water resource governance in South Africa; Locational conflict and mapping opposition to community-based mental health facilities and national and global trends in lifelong health and ageing.

Contemporary and Historical GIS and Cartography

Professor Richard Healey, Dr. Humphrey Southall, Dr. Peter Collier, Dr. Alastair Pearson, Dr. Dominic Fontana, Dr. Brian Baily, Martin Schaefer, Dr. Alexander Von Luenen (Research Fellow) and Paula Aucott (Senior Research Associate) form the core members of the group. Individual specialisms coupled with a variety of overlapping mutual interests enable the members to publish widely by print and electronic means.

The major areas of focus that link together individuals within this group and to outside collaborators include the use of historical cartography and historical GIS to investigate land use change, land use reconstruction, 19th and 20th century UK population change/mobility and19th century US capitalism and industrial development. One important output of this research  is the development of online historical geography resources, designed both for the general public and for niche academic 'markets'. These make use of a variety of internet technologies, including databases dynamically linked to the web, geo-ontologies and web-based digital mapping.

Current projects include public web resources for Historical UK population censuses; Historical cartography in the 19th and 20th century and the development of global mapping; Geographical reconstruction of historic events; Historical land use and environmental change at the coastal margin; Nineteenth century migration, economic opportunity and the railroads in the North-East USA; Wall Street and capital investment in the early Pennsylvania oil industry.

Environmental Processes and Change

The Environment Research Group encompasses a range of research interests and expertise and is undertaking research on various components of the environment including the atmosphere, rocks, soil, land, fresh water, sea water, rivers and coasts. Dr Brian Baily, Dr Malcolm Bray, Dr Paul Farres, Dr Rob Inkpen, Dr Nick Pepin, Dr Philip Soar and Dr Graham Wilson are the full-time academic staff members of this group, while Professor Derek Mottershead is a retired former member of staff associated with this group.

Our research ranges from fundamental work on aspects of the physical environment to integrated physical and socio-economic approaches to environmental issues. Research is ongoing in environments ranging from deserts to mountains and the Arctic to the tropics. Applied work and environmental management are also important themes of activity.

Current research areas include; Fluvial geomorphology, channel changes and processes, channel management; Coastal geomorphology, processes and changes; Shoreline management; Stone weathering, mechanisms, environmental influences, conservation practices; Climate processes and change; Temperature variation in mountain areas, comparison between global datasets (surface, radiosonde and satellite data/reanalyses); Soil erosion, soil crusting processes, soil-vegetation interaction.

Geographies of Labour, Cultures of Work and Economic Development

The work of this research group focuses on environment-society relations and interactions through the application of a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The group consists of Dr Carol Ekinsmyth, Dr Simon Leonard, Dr Marina Prieto-Carrón, Dr Andrew Ryder and Dr Mark Riley. The group brings together research focussing on the geographies of economic development, labour and cultures of work in different location and temporal contexts, including Europe and Latin America.

Current projects include: New media and cultural industry clusters in London and Barcelona; Small-scale entrepreneurship carried out (and started up) within the context of family life, parenting and work-life balance; Corporate social responsibility, global supply chains and women workers; women organisations, migrants organisations and labour rights; Agricultural change and the ‘family farm’; Retirement from agriculture and intergenerational kinship ties; lifestyle and life-course: Recycling in social context.