John Goddard is Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University. As Professor of Regional Development Studies, he founded the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) in 1977. CURDS now has 20 research staff engaged in a range of basic and policy research funded by the UK research councils, government departments, the European Commission and private industry. As Deputy Vice-Chancellor he is responsible, amongst other things, for the University's relations with the City and the region, including co-ordinating its engagement with the development of Newcastle as a Science City.

He has been a member of the Port of Tyne Authority, a Governor of the University of Northumbria, a director of the local business leadership team (the Newcastle Initiative), the Northern Informatics Application Agency and Newcastle Common Purpose. He is currently a Board member of the Newcastle Local Strategic Partnership, represents Tyne and Wear Universities on the Board of the Tyne and Wear Partnership and Chairman of the Regional Committee of the Big Lottery Fund which allocates funding to the community and voluntary sector. He played a major role in shaping the first Regional Economic Strategy which puts "Universities at the heart of the regional economy" and in steering the input of universities into a UK Government initiative to reduce regional disparities (The Northern Way) co-ordinated by the three Northern Regional Development Agencies. He has been also engaged in the regional higher education agenda as Deputy Chair of the Executive Committee of the association of North East Universities (Universities for the North East).

Nationally, John has served on various committees of the Economic and Social Research Council and as Director of its Programme on Information and Communications Technology (PICT). He has acted as an advisor on regional policy to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee and advised the UK universities association (UUK), the Higher Education Funding Council and the Department for Education and Skills on the regional role of universities.

Internationally he has acted as a consultant to OECD and the European Commission on the links between regional policy and technology/telecommunications policy. He has led a project for OECD's Institutional Management and Higher Education programme (IMHE) on the Response of Higher Education Institutions to Regional Needs and is currently leading a new initiative jointly between IMHE and the Territorial Development Service (TDS) of OECD on the role of HEIs in regional development; he is also acting as a consultant to TDS on a territorial development review of Finland which focuses on regional aspects of innovation policy. John has also chaired a number of international reviews for the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council assessing the regional role of Finnish Universities.

John's academic background is in economic geography, having obtained his first degree from University College London, and his PhD from LSE. He was a lecturer at LSE from 1968 to 1975 prior to moving to Newcastle. He was awarded an OBE in 1986 and the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1992 and elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2004.

Source: http://johngoddard.net/