Name Card
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Professor Webster, Christopher John
Title:
Professor, Chair of Urban Planning and Development Economics
Professor

Contact Information
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Office:
Professor Webster, Christopher John
Title:
Professor, Chair of Urban Planning and Development Economics
Professor

Curriculum Vitae:

Also Cited As:
Webster, C

Professional Qualifications
YearAwarding InstitutionQualification
NTF
AcSS
Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts Manufacturers and CommerceFRSA
Royal Institution of Chartered SurveyorsFRICS
2007Cardiff UniversityDScEcon
1989University of Wales College, CardiffMSc in Computing
1985University of HullPhD in Economic Geography
1981University of Wales Institute of Science and TechnologyDip in Town Planning
1979University of Wales Institute of Science and TechnologyBSc in Town Planning Studies
Biography

Professor Chris Webster trained in urban planning, computer science, economics and economic geography and is a leading urban theorist and spatial economic modeller.  He first studied Artificial Intelligence when taking a MSc in the Department of Computing Mathematics, Cardiff University in the late 1980s, writing a thesis on predicate-calculus based programming languages. Before that, his PhD research developed multi-time period linear programming models to convince the World Bank and the Thai Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives that Thailand’s poor farmers in the resource-scarce North Eastern provinces were constrained by production credit availability not by land or labour. As well as optimisation modelling, he has published urban and land research using cellular automata simulation, econometrics, urban remote sensing, spatial epidemiological models, decision-science models, computer vision, machine learning and computational general equilibrium models. He is Dean of HKU Faculty of Architecture and Chair Professor in Urban Planning and Development Economics in HKU’s Department of Urban Planning and Design. In 2014 he founded HKUrbanLabs as an incubation platform for novel interdisciplinary research across the Faculty of Architecture’s built environment departments and divisions and beyond. He is Senior Departmental Fellow at Cambridge University’s Department of Land Economy, and Honorary Professor at University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). He has published over 250 scholarly papers, book chapters and books on the idea of spontaneous urban order and received over US$25M grants for research and teaching and learning projects. For ten years he co-edited with Mike Batty, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design (now renamed Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science to better reflect the journal’s leading position in quantitative urban systems theory and research). Professor Webster has sixteen prize-winning academic papers on urban theory and is co-inventor of the prize-winning urban network analysis software sDNA.

 
Honours, Awards & Prizes
AwardeesAward DateHonours / Awards / PrizesCategory
2002-01-01Shortlisted runner-up, AESOP Prize papers in planning: Gated Cities of Tomorrow, Town Planning Review, 2001, Vol. 72(2), pp. 149 -170
Research Achievement
Wu, Fulong
He, Shenjing
2011-01-01Shortlisted runner-up, AESOP Prize European paper in planning award 2011: Deprivation in poverty neighbourhoods in Chinese Cities, Environment and Planning A, 42(1) pp134-152
Research Achievement
1981-01-01UK Social Science Research Council PhD Scholarship
Research Achievement
1981-01-01Cornell University Graduate Teaching Assistant PhD Research Scholarship (not taken up)
Research Achievement
2011-01-01Winner, National Teaching Fellowship Prize
Research Achievement
2010-01-01UN Habitat prize lecture 2010 nominee
Research Achievement
Roitman, S
Landman, K
2011-01-01Winner, AESOP Prize European paper in planning award 2011: Methodological frameworks and interdisciplinary research on gated communities.International Planning Studies, 15(1) pp 3-23
Research Achievement
2003-01-01Donald Roberston Memorial Prize for outstanding contribution to urban theory: The nature of the neighbourhood. Urban Studies, 40(13) 2591-2612
Research Achievement
Roitman, S
Landman, K
2012-01-01Methodological frameworks and interdisciplinary research on gated communities. Abridged version selected for inclusion in Volume 5 of Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning. A Routledge publication in association with GPEAN, show piecing the best planning scholarship globally
Research Achievement
2012-08-01Senior Fellow: The University Of Cambridge, Department Of Land Economy
Research Achievement
LI, Yishiqin
2020-09-01Urban Development and Land Policy (PLC) Dissertation Scholarship: Peking University-Lincoln Institute Center
Research Achievement
Wang, DR
2019-08-01Shortlisted For The Academic Category Of The Royal Town Planning Institute Awards For Research Excellence 2019: Royal Town Planning Institute
Research Achievement
2021-06-2324th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis - Wallace E. Tyner Travel Funds
Research Achievement
2019-05-062019 RTPI Awards for Research Excellence - Early Career Researcher category
Research Achievement
2019-09-032019 RTPI Award for Research Excellence – Academic category
Research Achievement
2017-10-11HKU Research Output Prize 2018
Research Achievement
2018-05-01The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence 2018 - Shortlisted in finals for the project: "Neighbourhood walkability and incidence of hypertension: Findings from the study of 429,334 UK Biobank participants".: Royal Town Planning Institute, London.
Research Achievement
2015-05-01Teaching Development Grant(TDG): The University of Hong Kong
Teaching Accomplishment
2014-09-01Winner of The RTPI Award for Excellence in spatial planning research: Academic Staff, 2014. Project: "Development of the UK Biobank Urban Morphometric Platform – A nationwide resource for evidence-based healthy city planning and interventions".: RTPI Education & Lifelong Learning Awards, Royal Town Planning Institute, UK.
Research Achievement
2014-12-01Webster C and Sarkar C. Winner, Royal Town Planning Institute Excellence in Spatial Planning Research Award 2014.
Research Achievement
2015-01-01HKU Teaching Development Fund award with Anderson Lee (PI), project titled “Creativity Learning Module (CLM) for Architecture and Surveying Students”
Teaching Accomplishment
2014-12-01Cooper C, Webster C, Jones C and Orford S (2013) Exploring the ripple effect in house prices using interaction and reactive domain cross correlations. Environment and Planning B. volume 40(5) pages 763-782, DOI:10.1068/b37062. Shortlisted for E&PB prize paper, 2013.
Research Achievement
2015-01-01GRF Award with Koon Wee (Co-I), project titled “Producing Food and Enhancing Community in the City: using a hybrid design-land economy approach to investigate the barriers to urban farming in Hong Kong”
Research Achievement
Chen, K
2020-04-01Research Output Prize 2018/19: The University of Hong Kong
Research Achievement
LIU, Jianzheng
2016-09-01The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence 2016 - Commendation for the project: "Exploring associations between urban green, street design and walking: Results from the Greater London boroughs": Royal Town Planning Institute, London.
Research Achievement
Chen, Z
2020-09-012020 Featured Article: ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Elsevier (JCR Impact Factor = 11.774, 1/50 in Geography, Physical, 3/34 in Remote Sensing)
Research Achievement
2019-05-01RTPI Awards for Research Excellence Winnier 2019, Commendation for highest scoring entry across all categories, presented to Dr. Guibo Sun for work with Professor Chris Webster and Xiaohu Zhang (University of Hong Kong) on 'Connecting the city: A three-dimensional pedestrian network of Hong Kong': Royal Town Planning Institute
Research Achievement
2019-05-01RTPI Awards for Research Excellence Winnier 2019, Early Career Academic Award, presented to Dr. Guibo Sun for his work with Professor Chris Webster and Xiaohu Zhang (University of Hong Kong) on 'Connecting the city: A three-dimensional pedestrian network of Hong Kong': Royal Town Planning Institute
Research Achievement
2019-09-01The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence – Academic award 2019: Winner Project: "Residential greenness and prevalence of major depressive disorders: a cross-sectional, observational, associational study of 94 879 adult UK Biobank participants": Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), London
Research Achievement
Kumari, S
Zhang, B
2020-09-01The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence – Academic award 2020: Shortlisted in the Finals for the project: "Environmental correlates of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 96 779 participants from the UK Biobank: a cross-sectional, observational study": Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), London
Research Achievement
2016-10-01Walk21HK CityTech Awards: CityTech Awards Innovation for Walking, Internet Society Hong Kong (ISOC HK) and Civic Exchange
Others
ZHANG, Mengzhu
2020-09-01Urban Development and Land Policy (PLC) Dissertation Scholarship: Peking University-Lincoln Institute Center
Research Achievement
Professional Societies
Term PeriodPositionProfessional Societies
2011 -Member, International Advisory CommitteeInternational Program on Urban Governance, National Taipei University, Taiwan
2001 - 2004National Advisory Committee memberGeneric LTSN Centre
2007 - 2009MemberHigher Education Academy Senior Fellowship awards panel
2006 - 2007MemberEuropean Ministers Working Group on Skills for Sustainable Communities
2008 - 2010Member of Advisory CommitteeInternational Association for China Planning
1993 - 1997Member of the national steering committeeComputers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Geography, Geology and Meteorology, based at the University of Leicester
2003 - 2006Member of international project advisory committeePro-poor Private Public Partnerships. UN ESCAP povery reduction division, Bangkok
2001 - 2005National steering committee memberGeneric LTSN Centre project: 'Part-time teachers'
2001 - 2003Project advisorGeneric LTSN Centre project: 'The Innovative Curriculum'
2004 - 2006Member, Management BoardThe Reinvention Centre, Warwick University and Oxford Brookes
1989 - 1991Member of Working Group III/1 (Geographical Information Theory) of Commission III (Mathematical Analysis of Data)International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
2001 - 2004Steering Committee memberFund for Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) Linking Teaching and Research
2013MemberPacific Rim Council for Urban Development
2006 -Evaluation panelEuropean Science Foundation research grants
1995 - 1999Founding ChairNational Steering Committee for the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for the Built Environment.
2000 - 2002Panel judgeNational Teaching Fellowship Scheme
2007 -Scientific evaluator for Academy ProfessorshipsResearch Council for Culture and Society (RCCS) of the Academy of Finland
2008 - 2012Panel judgeRoyal Town Planning Institute, Educational Awards
2006 - 2008Member, Research Advisory GroupUK Academy for Sustainable Communities
Media Contact Directory
Area of Expertise:
Area of Expertise (EN)Area of Expertise (ZH)
Urban planning reform in China
Urban planning
Urban network analysis
Urban economics
Spatial analysis
Private urban governance
Health city design
Spoken Languages:
Spoken Language(s) (EN)Spoken Language(s) (ZH)
English英語
Written Languages:
Written Language(s) (EN)Written Language(s) (ZH)
English英文
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