Dr Graham Gill

I completed my PhD in the Department of Sociology, University of York, in early 2022. Here, I work with key stakeholders in Bath, Bristol, Edinburgh, Plymouth, Preston, and York to identify the challenges that cities in the UK face to achieving sustainability and find ways of overcoming them. These have included issues of economic development, the effect of built heritage on culture, and the role of political consistency for local authorities in achieving their aims. Following my PhD I have worked on Valuing Voices as Evidence lead and Co-I. First, as an Enhancing Research Culture in which Dr Richard Friend (previously in Environment and Geography) and I developed a means through which academics may consider wider concepts that are becoming important in academia such as Responsible Research and Innovation, and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Now, following University of York using our work as the basis for a successful application to Wellcome Trust’s Institutional Funding for Research Culture, as a two-year £1 million project to encourage good research practices at York and our institutional partners at Mahidol University, Thailand. I’m proud of the positive work we do at Valuing Voices, and in this spirit, I simultaneously pursue my research around sustainable urban development through positions such as being Deputy lead for the UKRI Impact Acceleration Account theme ‘Enabling the Sustainable Society’ and my work for Bradford Culture Company, the charitable organisation behind Bradford 2025, to ensure that as my hometown, the city benefits from the Capital of Culture year.