Pro-Vice-Chancellor - Learning & Teaching
Professor Paul White
Paul is Professor of European Urban Geography. He joined the teaching staff in Sheffield in 1974. He has held visiting positions at the Universities of Paris, Cagliari, Zaragoza and Oxford. Although his teaching concentrates on European Themes, he has also taught population geography, social geography and the philosophy and methodology of human geography. Some years ago he was closely involved in the setting up of the first generic training programme for social sciences research students in the University.
In 2006 Paul received the Edward Heath Award of the Royal Geographical Society for contributions to research on the geography of Europe. The most significant research themes he has pursued concern international migration, ethnicity, social exclusion, and neighbourhood change. Visiting other European countries, and particularly their major cities, combines work and play for Paul, whose favourite and much-visited cities at the moment are Berlin, Lisbon and Paris. He has supervised over 20 PhD students, who have then gone on to take employment in Germany, France, Ethiopia and Japan as well as the UK.
Among wider disciplinary activities, Paul has served as Secretary and later Chair of the Population Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society. He was also a member of the RGS / QAA benchmarking group producing the national benchmark for geography in higher education.
Paul chairs many committees and groups within the University but outside the University he is a member of the Teaching Quality and Student Experience Strategic Committee of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. He is also co-chair of the Higher Education Academy´s Pro-Vice-Chancellor network, and chair of the Russell Group's network of Pro-Vice-Chancellors for Learning and Teaching. Closer to home he is a governor of Longley Park Sixth Form College in Sheffield.