Nick Henry

Geographies of the economy, regional and local economic and social development, its practice, policies and outcomes for people, place and planet. Especially cultural and creative industries. Transdisciplinary approaches and methods.

Nick Henry is Executive Director of the Centre for Creative Economies and Professor of Economic Geography at Coventry University. He returned to academe with Coventry University in 2013 and was subsequently promoted to Co-Director, Centre for Business in Society and a Professorship. This followed ten years as a public policy and evaluation consultant culminating in his position as Consulting Director, Economic Development and Economic Policy at ICF GHK (now ICF). Nick is a trained economic geographer who began his career in the Geography Department of the Open University before lectureships at Southampton and Birmingham universities and a Readership in Urban and Regional Studies at CURDS, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. From 2003-2007, he combined his Readership with consultancy before moving to full time policy consultancy and a Visiting Professorship at Newcastle. Nick has long run, substantial and wide-ranging experience of directing and managing research and consultancy projects on economic and social development for a range of mainly public clients from local to European levels. From 2019 to 2023 he was Coventry University lead on the monitoring and evaluation of Coventry UK City of Culture 2021. The new Research Centre for Creative Economies continues Coventry University's broader investment tradition in culture and creativity.

Other positions:

• Director, Creative United Community Investment Company
• Editor-in-Chief, European Urban and Regional Studies

I am interested in how local and regional economies and are ‘made’ by the diversity of economic processes and activities and the subsequent impacts on people, communities and places. Through my public policy work, I engage with how policy is created and applied to both shape and ameliorate impacts. I have a particular belief in diversity of research approaches and methods to achieve insight, understanding and change.