Prof. John Tomaney is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. Previously he was Henry Daysh Professor of Regional Development and Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University. He has held visiting appointments in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at Monash University, Melbourne; Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales, Sydney; CURDS, Newcastle University; Gran Sasso Science Institute; Manchester Business School and University College Dublin and is an Fellow of the Academy of Social Science (UK)  and the Regional Australia Institute. He was educated at the London School of Economics, University of Sussex and University of Newcastle upon Tyne.  

He has published over 100 books and articles on questions of local and regional development including Local and Regional Development (2nd Edition, Routledge, 2017) and Handbook of Local and Regional Development (Routledge 2011) co-authored with Andy Pike and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose. He has undertaken numerous research projects in the UK and elsewhere. Among the organisations for which he has conducted research are: UK Research Councils, government departments in the UK and elsewhere, the European Commission, the OECD and local and regional development agencies and private sector and voluntary organisations and think tanks in the UK and abroad. He has given evidence to Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees in the UK. In addition, he is a regular commentator in the UK media on matters of local and regional development.