Paul is a UK and international advisor on cities, regions and local economies. He has contributed to policy nationally and to local economic development, governance and place-shaping. His distinctive expertise is working across policy practice and academia. Paul is Chair of the Policy Committee of the Regional Studies Association and is a non-executive Director of Cambridge Econometrics. In 2014, Paul contributed to the Research Evaluation Framework of UK universities (REF 2014). He has provided policy expertise to international (e.g. Council of Europe and OECD) and UK national organisations (e.g. Centre for Cities, Work Foundation, Department for Communities and Local Government, CABE), as well as being Visiting Policy Fellow at Salford University and Associate for the Centre for London, He has published on regional policy, place-shaping, governance and localism, city-regions, medium-sized cities and sub-national economic policy. Paul is completing a PhD part-time at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, London.