Julian Clark is Reader in Political Geography at the University of Birmingham. His research informs and extends debates focussed on critical geographical understandings of the state, and the governance of natural resources. In these domains Julian examines questions of how states are materialized and stabilised over space and time, including through geographies of diplomacy; and critical governance approaches to environmental change through evidence-based decisionmaking and novel theoretically informed methods. He has given invited talks around the world on these topics in Australia, the United States, Germany, France, Sweden and Nepal. He completed his PhD in Geography at the University College London and worked at UCL and Birkbeck University of London, before moving to University of Birmingham.

Julian’s research focuses in two areas – developing critical understandings of the state (particularly how states materialize and exercise power, and the practices of state representation through geographies of diplomacy); and on critical governance approaches to natural resource management (particularly their complex associations with global change and social-ecological and socio-technical systems). He currently co-leads the Hidden Depths project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, examining the pressing issues of environmental change associated with mining sand from rivers in northern India and Bangladesh: sand mining is one of the most exploitative forms of resource management globally. Julian’s role in the project is to develop new approaches to understanding how and whether sand can be mined sustainably using innovative governance approaches. He also has ongoing ESRC funded impact related research examining sand extraction procedures and practices in Northern Ireland. As part of the EU funded PyroLife consortium, Julian has been working with colleagues in the Food and Agriculture Organization (Rome), European University (Cyprus) and Università degli Studi di Torino (Italy) to establish new ways to understand the governance and management of wildfires. Julian has written four monographs including The Modalities of European Union Governance (published with Oxford University Press), on the institutional pathways and spatial patterning of governance within the European Union, and The Spatialities of Europeanization (published with Routledge). He has 80 internationally peer reviewed publications, supported by funding from European Union, ESRC, European Science Foundation and NERC – DFID funded projects. His internationally leading research has led to appointments as specialist advisor to the UK House of Lords on governance of innovation in rural areas, and to the UK’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology on precision farming.