Nick Henry

Geographies of (parts of) the economy, regional and local economic development, its practice, policies and outcomes for people, place and planet.

Professor Nick Henry returned to academe with Coventry University in 2013 and was subsequently promoted to Co-Director, Centre for Business in Society. 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. 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. Since 2019 he has been Coventry University lead on the monitoring and evaluation of Coventry UK City of Culture 2021

Other positions:

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

As an economic geographer, I am interested in how local and regional economies 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 economic and social impacts. My current work on economic development includes: entrepreneurship, enterprise, sectors, clusters and value chains (especially advanced manufacturing, motorsport and creative industries) and community finance (CDFIs), social investment and social enterprise.