Allan Cochrane

Allan is Emeritus Professor of Faculty in Arts and Social Science at The Open University, where he is based in the Geography department, and has worked on more courses than he cares to think about! He’s, at various times, been a student, associate lecturer, dean, pro-vice chancellor, and head of department. His work is currently focused on the politics and policies of cities and regions, including the ways in which they have been framed by the practices of the European Union. His current area of interest is how the Brexit vote reflected divisions between the regions and nations of the UK, and the extent to which Brexit may serve to reinforce them.

Allan is co-author of Rethinking the Region (Routledge, 1998) and joint editor of Comparing Welfare States (Sage 2001). His book Understanding Urban Policy was published by Blackwell in 2007, and a new jointly authored book titled The Lived Experiences of Multiculture will be published by Routledge later this year.

In his 30 years at The Open University I contributed to a wide range of interdisciplinary courses as well as courses in geography, urban studies and social policy. His teaching and research interests lie at the junction of geography, social and public policy.

He continues to contribute where he can. He chairs the advisory board of the ESRC funded project Smart Cities in the Making, Learning from Milton Keynes. Earlier in 2018, an open course that he prepared called From Brexit to the Break-up of Britain? was launched online.

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