• Creative economies and clusters
• Socio-technical transitions
• Implicit, place-based and industrial heritage

David Jarvis is Professor of Creative Economies at Coventry University. He is an established academic leader and manager with a 23-year career spanning both commercial and Higher Education environments. His Professorial appointment, conferred by Coventry University in 2022, reflects agenda-setting strategic leadership, energising mentorship, impactful research and consultancy, a record income generation across a dynamic portfolio of research, consultancy and Executive Education, and outstanding doctoral training expertise. His experience includes management of research budgets, partnerships, risks and resources, a deep understanding of national and international research policy landscapes, and a proven ability to work collegiately and communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels of the University Group, and beyond.

Over his career to date, David has delivered a portfolio of 75 funded research, consultancy and evaluation assignments, including multiple transnational collaborations across Europe and Asia. This collaborative, cross-sector and interdisciplinary activity has generated more than 100 written research outputs, including in excess of 30 journal and book contributions. He has also played formative strategic roles in the establishment and leadership of two research centres at Coventry University: the Applied Research Centre in Sustainable Regeneration (SURGE), founded in 2006, where he later served as Deputy Director; and the Centre for Business in Society (CBiS) established in 2014, where he served as Co-Director until June 2025. In both roles, his leadership roles focused on building high-performing teams and delivering research excellence with demonstrable impact.

Alongside strategic research leadership, David has applied research driven insight to enhance teaching innovation and curriculum development, and the design and delivery of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Executive Education programmes. Highlights include, a postgraduate supervision track record of significant scale, comprising 19 doctoral completions to date across full-time, part-time and portfolio routes, and the leadership of the development and implementation of a new professional doctorate, the Coventry DBA.