Richard Kingston

I am undergraduate Admissions Tutor, Director of the BA (Hons) City and Regional Development Programme and SED’s representative on the Faculty of Humanities Information Systems Committee.  I have been a lecturer in Planning and Landscape since September 2003.  I was previously a research associate at the Centre for Computational Geography in the School of Geography, University of Leeds where I developed Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) methods and applications.  I have also worked in planning practice for Leicestershire County Council and a number of planning consultancies before focusing upon an academic career.  My main area of research expertise focuses on the potential benefits ICTs can bring to the planning process. 

Educational Background

BA(Hons) Town Planning 1992, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Master of Town Planning, 1995, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Membership of Professional Bodies

Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (MRTPI).
Member of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA).

Public Participation GIS (PPGIS);
Planning Support Systems;
e-Planning and e-Government.

My main research interests and expertise are in the development, designing and implementing software systems for web-based PPGIS. These have been applied to a range of local, regional and national planning and decision support problems and issues. More broadly I am interested in how technology can be used to enhance the operation of the planning system as a whole. You can find further details about my research at the Public Participation GIS Research Group website

2008-2011: Green and Blue Space Adaptation for Urban Areas and Eco Towns (GRaBS) is a €3m project funded by the European Commission’s INTERREG IVC program.

2008-2011: Joseph Rowntree Foundation Housing and Neighbourhood Monitor. This is a 3 year £250k project. 

2007-2011: EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environments Research Programme II - SURegen an Integrated Decision Support System for Sustainable Urban Regeneration.  This is a £2.3m 4 year project.

2006-2009: ESRC Collaborative CASE studentship – Citizenship in the Electronically Networked City (with Jon Coaffee and Manchester Digital Development Agency).

2005-2008: ESRC Collaborative CASE studentship – Understanding the Dynamics of Neighbourhood Change: Exploring the Diffusion of Demand in a Housing Market Renewal Area (with Iain Deas and Manchester City Council).

Teaching commitments

Undergraduate:

• PLAN20032 – Skills and Research Methods.

Postgraduate Masters:

• PLAN60832 – European Planning Perspectives with international fieldtrip.

Current postgraduate (PhD) students

Cassie Wesolowski - Alternatives, Tiered Environmental Assessment and Decision - Making in Radioactive Waste Management. Co-supervisor: Carys Jones. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Graham Squires - Understanding the Dynamics of Neighbourhood Change: Exploring the Diffusion of Demand in a Housing Market Renewal Area. Co-supervisor: Iain Deas. Funding: ESRC CASE award and Manchester City Council.

Anna Gilchrist - Climate Changes, Species Migration and the Institutional Response. Co-supervisors:John Handley and Adam Barker. University Scholarship.

Jenni Viitanen - Citizenship in the Electronically Networked City. Co-supervisor: Jon Coaffee. Funding: ESRC CASE award and Manchester Digital Development Agency.

Kai Zhou - Planning Support Systems for Sustainable Urban Regeneration. Co-supervisor: Joe Ravetz. Funding: EPSRC.

Recently completed postgraduate (PhD) students

2008: Ali Al-Sulbi - Ecological Impact Prediction of the Damman Metropolitan Area's Coastal Reclamation. Co-supervisor: Carys Jones. Funding: Government Scholarship.

Journals

Ballas, D., Kingston, R., Stillwell J and Jin, J. (2007) Building a spatial microsimulation-based planning support system for local policy making, Environment and Planning A. (in press).

Kingston, R. (2007) Public participation in local policy decision-making: the role of web-based mapping. The Cartographic Journal, 44(2), 138-144.

Carver, S., Evans, A., Kingston, R. (2004) Developing and testing a web-based GIS for teaching the principles of spatial decision-making. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 28(3) pp 425-438.

Evans, A., Kingston , R. and Carver, S. (2004) Democratic input into the nuclear waste disposal problem: the influence of geographical data on decision making examined through a web-based GIS. Journal of Geographical Systems, 6(2), 117-132.

Carver, S., Evans, A., Kingston, R. and Turton, I. (2001) Public participation, GIS and cyberdemocracy: evaluating on-line spatial decision support systems. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. 28(6), 907-921.

Kingston, R., Carver, S., Evans, A. and Turton, I. (2000) Web-Based Public Participation Geographical Information Systems: An Aid To Local Environmental Decision-Making. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. 24(2) 109-125.

Carver, S., Evans, A., Kingston, R. and Turton, I. (2000) Accessing Geographical Information Systems over the World Wide Web: Improving public participation in environmental decision-making. Information, Infrastructure and Policy. 6, 157-170.

Kingston, R., Carver, S., Evans, A. and Turton, I. (2000) Net Gains. The Surveyor. 27th April, 187(5578).

Books

Kingston, R. (forthcoming) Web based participatory GIS. In Nyerges, T., Couclelis, H. and McMaster, R. (eds) Handbook of GIS & Society Research. London: Sage.

Kingston, R. (forthcoming) Participatory Planning. In Warf, B. (ed) Encyclopedia of Geography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Viitanen, J. and Kingston, R. (2009) The Role of Public Participation GIS in Local Service Delivery. In Reddick, C. (ed) Strategies for Local E-Government Adoption and Implementation: Comparative Studies. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Kingston, R. (2005) Public Participation GIS in Heywood, I., Cornelius, S. & Carver, S. (eds) An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems. 3rd Edition. Prentice Hall, Harlow.

Ballas, D., Kingston , R, Stillwell, J. and Birkin, B. (2004) Simulating the City. In Unsworth, R. and Stillwell, J. Twenty-first Century Leeds: geographies of a regional city . Leeds University Press.

Ballas, D, Kingston R & Stillwell, J (2004), Using a spatial microsimulation decision support system for policy scenario analysis, in J. van Leeuwen and H. Timmermans (eds.), Recent Advances in Design and Decision Support Systems in Architecture and Urban Planning, Kluwer: Dordrecht , pp. 177-192.

Kingston, R., Evans, A., and Carver, S. (2002) Public participation via on-line democracy. In Geertman, S. and Stillwell, J. (eds) Planning Support Systems in Practice. Springer-Valer.

Kingston, R. (2002) Web Based PPGIS in the UK. In W. Craig (ed.) Community Empowerment, Public Participation and Geographic Information Science. Taylor & Francis.

Howard, A. and Kingston, R. (2002) The physical setting of the Vale of York and its effect on the archaeological landscape. In Horne, P. and Kershaw, A. (eds) The Vale of York National Mapping project. London: English Heritage.

Funded Projects

2007 - Outcome Indicators for Spatial Planning, RTPI and DCLG.

2006/7 - ODPM ‘Spatial Plans in Practice: Achieving successful participation using ICT’.

2005 - National Science Foundation  (USA) project investigating the future e‑Planning research agenda in collaboration with the State University of New York, Albany.

2004/5 - Faculty funded pilot study investigating the implementation of E-Government in Local Planning Authorities.

2004/5 - EU 6th Framework funded IST Integrated Project IntelCities (Intelligent Cities) was a research and technological development project to pool advanced knowledge and experience of electronic government, planning systems and citizen participation from across Europe.  WP5 developed a web-based PPGIS for community engagement in urban regeneration and planning consultations in New East Manchester.

2003/4 - Wakefield District Council/Channel 4 funded project to develop and implement a new web-based PPGIS for community engagement and regeneration.

2003/4 - Manchester City Council ‘South Manchester base-line study’.

2003/4 - Leeds Initiative funded project to develop a Micro-simulation Modelling and Predictive Policy Analysis (Micro-MaPPAS) software tool for modelling and predicting policy scenarios at the neighbourhood scale.

2002 - ESRC E-Science Demonstrator project. HYDRA: Health Care Planning with Data Driven Resource Allocation.

2002 - EDINA E-MapScholar. Public participation in locating a nuclear waste disposal site in the UK.

2001/2 - DTLR. Scoping study on disaggregating BVPIs to enable small area analysis.

2001 - EU 5th Framework  project to develop an Internet tool for EU planners, decision-makers and citizens interested in the effects of global climatic change and the forecasting of land use change and land degradation.

2000 - UK NIREX Ltd funded research examining the use of the Internet to facilitate stakeholder dialogue on spatial information for nuclear waste disposal and storage.

2000 - Learning and Teaching Support Network GEES Project. An electronic information gateway for geography, earth and environmental sciences.

2000 - Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The Social Implications of E‑commerce: a review of policy and research.

1997 – 2000 - ESRC funded project titled Public Participation in Local Decision Making: evaluating the potential of Virtual Decision Making Environments as part of their Virtual Societies? Research Programme.  This project critically examined the role of GIS and the World Wide Web in enhancing current decision making processes and infrastructures. In particular, the research focused on what role GIS and the Web could play in improving public participation in local, regional and national environmental decision making.

1997 – Advisory Group on Computer Graphics.