David Simon

Dr. David Simon is a Professor of Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK and was also Director of Mistra Urban Futures, Gothenburg, Sweden from 2014 to 2019. He specialises in cities, climate change and sustainability, and the relationships between theory, policy and practice, on all of which he has published extensively. 

At Mistra Urban Futures, he led the pioneering methodological research on comparative transdisciplinary co-production. His extensive experience includes sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the UK, Sweden and USA. His most recent books are Rethinking Sustainable Cities: Accessible, green and fair (Policy Press, 2016), Urban Planet (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Holocaust Escapees and Global Development: Hidden histories (Zed Books, 2019), Key Thinkers on Development (2nd Ed., Routledge, 2019), Comparative Urban Research from Theory to Practice: Co-production for sustainability (Policy Press, 2020), and Transdisciplinary Knowledge Co-production for Sustainable Cities: a Guide (Practical Action Publishing, 2020). Dr. Simon holds a B.A. with Distinction from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, B.A. (Hons) from the University of Reading and a DPhil from the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar.