Professor Neil Ward

Neil Ward is Professor of Rural and Regional Development at the University of East Anglia (UEA).  He was UEA’s Deputy Vice Chancellor and PVC-Academic (2013-21). Professor Ward began his academic career as a geographer at University College London. His research interests are in rural economic and social change, agriculture, food and environmental policy and regional development. He has held chairs at the University of Leeds and Newcastle University, where he was director of the Centre for Rural Economy from 2004 to 2008. He has also worked for periods on secondment to the Cabinet Office and as an advisor to the Economic and Social Research Council. Neil is a co-convenor of UKRI’s ‘AFN’ Network+ on “AgriFood4NetZero” and is author of Net Zero, Food and Farming: Climate Change and the UK Agri-Food System (2023) and Horses, Power and Place: A More-Than-Human Geography of Equine Britain (2024).