Paul A. Longley

I am a Professor of Geographic Information Science in the Department, where I also lead the Consumer Data Research Centre at UCL – an Economic and Social Research Council Smart Data Research UK investment. My research interests are focused on socioeconomic and demographic applications of Geographic Information Science, including geo-temporal demographics, urban modelling and inter-generational social mobility, often entailing large and complex databases. 

I was born in Leytonstone, East London, and brought up near Southend-on-Sea. I was a Professor of Geography at the University of Bristol before joining UCL in 2000 and have also worked at what is now Cardiff University and the University of Reading. Much of my life has been spent at c. 51°30’ latitude.

More about Professor Longley

My work has sought to develop and apply Geographic Information Science and Systems and I have co-authored four textbook editions on this subject. Latterly, many of these applications have re-used consumer data and linked them to present-day or historical administrative and statistical sources. 

It has been my privilege to supervise many PhD students, who now work in universities in the UK or overseas. Others have also been very successful in industry or government.

Teaching

I run a research centre at UCL and supervise several PhD students, so I do not feature heavily in the teaching programme. 

The work of the research centre does, however, feature in contributions I make to the following modules:

• Thinking Geographically I (GEOG0151)
• Thinking Geographically II (GEOG0012)

Publications

To view Professor Longley's publications, please visit UCL Profiles:

Publications

Research Interests

The focus of my funded research has included:

• The development of neighbourhood geodemographic classifications, extending to historical classifications and characterisation of workplaces and wider population activity patterns; 
• Modelling geodemographic and urban land use change using microsimulation and associated methods;
• Family name geographies and onomastics (the study of the history and origin of proper names, especially personal names); 
• Retail geography and consumer behaviour; and
• The delivery of public services, specifically education, health and policing.

Impact

Much of my research seeks to unlock the power of consumer ‘Big Data’ for the social good. It has established the value of data that characterise people by where they live, their work and other activity patterns, and their family genealogy. Geo-temporal demographic profiles can be mined, integrated, classified and visualised to benefit the government, economy and society.

I direct the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre at UCL. This works with businesses, government statistical agencies and the third sector to acquire and link diverse data sources, many never previously used in academia, in state-of-the-art secure research facilities. Interpretation and visualization then inform questions relating to social inequalities. The work has equipped people working in the public, private, education and research sectors with unique products, classification approaches and visualisation tools that have shaped policy, practice and planning decisions in the UK and beyond.

One example of this work is the 2021/2 Output Area Classification of 52 different UK Neighbourhood Types that was created for the Office for National Statistics. The method underpinning our previous (2011) classification was used to create the London Output Area Classification (LOAC) for the Greater London Authority, to capture the distinctive characteristics of the London population, particularly in terms of its ethnic structure. LOAC has helped the GLA to pinpoint areas that were rapidly becoming more densely populated and plan for public services, as well as helping to forecast the number of school places that would be needed. 
Transport for London also used LOAC, in combination with its survey data, to discover who is living in London, their travel preferences, how amenable they would be to change and what might be effective in persuading them to change their travel choices. This has fed into the Mayor of London’s Transport Strategy 2017-41.

At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was suspected that some ethnicities fared worse than others from the infection in terms of outcomes and deaths. I worked with Public Health Wales to use names classification software to fill in missing ethnicity information and examine ethnic variations in outcomes for patients hospitalised with COVID-19 – ultimately revealing that ethnic minorities had an increased risk of hospital admission, but not a greater likelihood of dying. 
In recent years I have also worked on collaborative and co-funded PhD projects to investigate applied research problems of concern to organisations including Arup, BT Archives, Didobi, GambleAware, Kantar, Local Data Company and PDV 

Research Students

• 1987-89    Simon (now Helen) Thompson. SERC award, principal supervisor. M.Sc awarded 1990. Subsequently senior manager with GENAMAP GIS and most recently Commercial Business Industry Solutions Manager, at ESRI Inc., Redlands, CA.
• 1990-93    Myles Gould.  SERC award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 1996. Currently Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Leeds.
• 1991-94    Victor Mesev.  SERC award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 1995. Subsequently ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. Currently Chair, University of Florida, Tallahassee.
• 1993-6    Scott Orford.  ESRC award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 1997. Subsequently Computer O at the icer, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, and curra gently Professor in Spatial Analysis and GIS, Cardiff University.
• 1996-9    Richard Harris. ESRC award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 1999. Subsequently Research Assistant at, the University of Bristol. Currently Professor of Quantitative and Social Geography, University of Bristol.
• 1998-9    Emma Roe. ESRC award, principal supervisor until 1999 and remained in Bristol after my move to UCL. Ph.D. awarded 2002. Currently Associate Professor in Human Geography, University of Southampton.
• 1998-2001    William Grey. NERC award, external supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2002. Subsequently Research Fellow, at the Department of Geography, Swansea University.
• 2000-3    Carolina Tobon. UCL Teaching Assistantship, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2003. Subsequently GIS analyst for ESRI (UK) Ltd. and then a software redeveloper.
• 2000-3    Paul Torrens. ESRC competition award, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2003. Subsequently Assistant Professor at, the University of Utah then an Associate Professor in Geography, at Arizona State University, and then a Professor at, the University of Maryland. Currently Professor of Urban Informatics, New York University.
• 2001-3    Mike de Smith. Self-funded, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2004. Subsequently self-employed consultant.
• 2001-4    Daryl Lloyd. ESRC CASE award, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2005. Subsequently senior research analyst at ODPM and the Cabinet Office.
• 2001-3     Ian Greatbatch. Research grant funded, principal supervisor for part of study period only. M.Sc. awarded 2007. Currently Senior lecturer, School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, Kingston University.
• 2001-4     (Lily) Chao Li. ESRC competition award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2005. Subsequently ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UCL.
• 2001-4     Torsten Schietzelt. ESRC CASE award, second supervisor. No thesis was submitted. Subsequently ad hoc lecturer, at the Bartlett School, UCL.
• 2001-4     Sarah Smith. Ordnance Survey funded, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2005. Subsequently research analyst at, the Ordnance Survey (Great Britain) and then a Research Fellow in Civil Engineering and Geosciences at, the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
• 2001-6    Nancy Chin. Research grant funded (part-time), second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2006. Subsequently senior civil servant.
• 2001-5    Sinesio Alves Jr. Brazilian Government Scholarship, second supervisor. No thesis was submitted. Subsequently, inter alia, Computer Officer at UCL.
• 2002-5     Tessa Anderson. ESRC CASE award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2006. Subsequently Lecturer in Geography at, the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, then the University of Queensland, Hong Kong University and the Technical University of Denmark.
• 2002-5     David Ashby. ESRC CASE award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2006. Subsequently Business Development Manager, UCL Business Plc. Then Director of Informatics, Dr Foster (Research) Ltd. Currently Team Leader, NHS England.
• 2002-5    Aidan Slingsby. ESRC CASE award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2006. Subsequently Postdoctoral Research Fellow, and then Lecturer in Visual and Analytical Computing, (London) City University.
• 2002-5     John Ward. ESRC CASE award, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2007. Subsequently Research Officer and Senior Research Feat Low, the Bartlett School, UCL.
• 2002-4    Ozlem Sahbaz. Research grant funded (part-time) the second supervisor until inter-departmental transfer in 2004. No award.
• 2002-5    Joana Simoes. Portuguese Government scholarship, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2006. Subsequently software developer, Brunel University.
• 2002-7    Alex Singleton. Research grant funded (full/part-time), principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2007. Subsequently I Research Officer, at UCL and am currently a Professor of Geographic Information Science at, the University of Liverpool. 
• 2003-6    Andrew Crooks. ESRC CASE award, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2007. Subsequently Research Scientist at, Greater London Authority and then an Assistant and then Associate Professor in Geography, at George Mason University. 
• 2003-7    Christian Castle. Research grant funded/ESRC CASE award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2007. Subsequently, transport planning consultant.
• 2004-7     Hanif Rahemtulla. ESRC competition award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2008. Subsequently Research Officer, at Université Laval. Currently SeonioSeniorrch Officer, the Woat old Bank.
• 2004-7    Pablo Mateos. Research grant funded (full time), principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2007. Subsequently ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow and then Lecturer in Geography, at UCL. Currently Associate Professor, University of Guadalajara.
• 2004-8     Kate Jones. Research grant funded (full time), principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2008. Subsequently Research Associate at, UCL, then Lecturer in Geograt, apathy, Portsmouth Univerand city, and then a Senior Research cher, Université du Luxembourg.
• 2005-14    Miles Davis. ESRC funded, second supervisor. No award.
• 2005-8     Jakob Petersen. Research grant funded, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2008. Subsequently pharmaco-epidemiologist, National Health Service. Currently Research Data Manager, Institute for Economic and Social Research, University of Essex.
• 2005-9     Catherine Lowe. ESRC competition award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2010. in Subsequently analyst, Aon Benfield Analytics. 
• 2006-8     Dr. Maurizio Gibin. Research grant funded, principal supervisor. (Refocused on research papers 2008, following appointment as Lecturer in Geography, University of London, Birkbeck College). Currently Scientific Officer, Joint Research Centre, European Commission Science Service.
• 2007-14     Amon Boontore. Royal Thai Government Scholarship funded, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2014. Subsequently Lecturer, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand.
• 2007-14    Spencer Chainey. Academic staff part-time registration, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2014.
• 2008-11     Muhammad Adnan. Research grant funded, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2011. Subsequently Research Analyst, at LFG Ltd., and part-time postdoctoral researcher, at UCL, then Postdoctoral Research Fellow, at UC, then Data Scientist for Shell Plc, and then Senior Retail Analyst at Marks and Spencer Plc. Currently  Senior Data Scientist, Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai, UAE.
• 2008-11     James Cheshire. ESRC CASE award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2011. in Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in Spatial Analysis, UCL. Subsequently I Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography, at UCL.
• 2008-11     Daniel Lewis. ESRC CASE award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awin' added 2012. Subsequently postdoctoral research fellow, at QMW and LSHTM London
• 2008-12     Paul Richards. ESRC CASE award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2013. Subsequently Lecturer in GIS, at Kingston University. Currently Statistical Analyst, UK Office for National Statistics.
• 2009-10     Nahid Mohajeri. Self-funded, principal supervisor. Transferred to new supervisor to pursue refocused research interests. Ph.D. awarded in 2013.
• 2010-14    Christopher Gale. UCL Impact Award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2014. in Subsequently Postdoctoral Researcher, at UCL, then Senior Research Assistant, at Southampton University. Currently Head of Geospatial Analysis and Capability, Office for National Statistics.
• 2011-14     Kallum Dhillon. ESRC DTC Award, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2015. Subsequently research analyst, at the Ministry of Defence.
• 2011-18     Melanie Bosredon. Research grant funded, second supervisor. No award.
• 2012-15     Jens Kandt. ESRC DTC Award, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awin' added 2015. Subsequently postdoctoral researcher, and then lecturer, UCL.
• 2012-13     Matthew Pratt. ESRC DTC/collaborative award, principal supervisor. (Withdrew 2013 for employment related to research topic)
•  2012-17     Alistair Leak, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory funded (4 years) years, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded in 2017. Subsequently postdoctoral researcher, UCL.
• 2013-18    Kira Kempinska, EPSRC DTC award, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2019. Subsequently lecturer, UCL.
• 2013-14     Adrian Manning, part-time, principal supervisor. Withdrew for family reasons.
• 2014-18     Guy Lansley. Academic staff part part-titration, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2018. Subsequently postdoctoral researcher and senior analyst at Barclays Plc Data and Analytics Centre of Excellence.
• 2014-15     Syed Uddin, ESRC funded, principal supervisor. M.Res. awarded 2015.
• 2015-16     Chrysanthi Kollia, ESRC and industry-funded, principal supervisor. M.Res awarded 2016.
• 2015-18     Anastasia Ushakova, ESRindustry-funded funded, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded Subsequentlyquenly lecturer at Edinburgh and then Lancaster University.
• 2015-19    Tim Rains, research grant/industindustry-fundedcipal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2019. Currently senior store location analyst, J. Sainsbury Plc.
• 2016-19     Balamurugan Soundararaj, ESRindustry-funded funded, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2019. Subsequently postdoctoral researcher at the University of New South Wales.
• 2016-19     Karlo Lugomer, ESRC and industindustry-fundedcipal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2019. Subsequently retail industry consultant.
• 2017-20     Ffion Carney, ESRC and industindustry-fundedcipal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2020. Subsequently postdoctoral researcher, UCL.
• 2017-21     Markus Löning, ESRC and industindustry-fundedcipal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2021. Subsequently business analyst.
• 2017- 22    Terje Trasberg, ESRindustry-funded funded, second supervisor. PhD awarded 2022. Subsequently team leader for Estonian Statistical Service. 
• 2018-2023     Alfred Long, ESRC and industry-funded, principal supervisor. (Intending PhD)PhD 2018-22    James Todd, ESRC and industry-funded, second supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2022. Subsequently postdoctoral researcher, at UCL.
• 2019-     Jakub Wyszomierski, ESRC and industry-funded, principal supervisor. (Intending PhD)
• 2019-23    Byeonghwa Jeong, principal supervisor. Ph.D. awarded 2023. Subsequently postdoctoral researcher, University of Toronto.
• 2019-22     Abigail Hill, ESRC and industry-funded, second supervisor. PhD awarded 2022. 
• 2019-     Jason Tang, ESRC and industry-funded, second supervisor. (Intending PhD.)
• 2020-     Nikki Tanu, ESRC and industry-funded, principal supervisor. (intending MPhil.)
• 2020-     Louise Sieg, ESRC and industry-funded, second supervisor. (Intending PhD.)
• 2021-     Shunya Kimura, ESRC and charity funded, principal supervisor. (Intending PhD.)
• 2022-     Mikaella Mavrogeni, ESRC and industry-funded, principal supervisor. (Intending PhD.)
• 2023-     Michael Xiao, ESRC and industry-funded, principal supervisor. (Intending PhD.)

Research Grants, Prizes and Awards

 2021

• Economic and Social Research Council: Consumer Data Research Centre continuation funding (PI: co-Is J Cheshire, J Reynolds, A Singleton: ES/L011840/1). £1,764,007
• Economic and Social Research Council: World Class Labs equipment supplementation to CDRC (ES/L011840/1). £182,499

2020

• Economic and Social Research Council: Local Data Space supplementation to CDRC (ES/L011840/1). £118,473 
• Economic and Social Research Council: World Class Labs equipment supplementation to CDRC (ES/L011840/1). £212,000
• Economic and Social Research Council: Consumer Data Research Centre continuation funding (PI: co-Is J Cheshire, J Reynolds, A Singleton: ES/L011840/1).).£1,105,920

2019

• Medical Research Council – UK Prevention Research Partnership. ActEarly: a City Collaboratory approach to early promotion of good health and wellbeing (Co-I: Co-PIs J Wright, A Hayward, Co-I P A Longley and 33 others).  £6,500 
• Economic and Social Research Council: Modelling housing career trajectories in Great Britain (Co-I: PI R. Coulter: ES/S016422/1). £231,354
• Economic and Social Research Council: Consumer Data Research Centre continuation funding (PI: co-Is J Cheshire, J Reynolds, A Singleton: ES/L011840/1). £ 906,223

2017

• Economic and Social Research Council: Inclusive and healthy mobility: Understanding trends in concessionary travel in the West Midlands. (co-I: PI J Kandt: ES/P010741/1) £126,324

2016

• Economic and Social Research Council: Equipment supplementation for the Consumer Data Research Centre-led SmartStreetSensor industrial collaboration with the Local Data Company £301,681

2015

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council:UK Regions Digital Research Facility (UK RDRF) (co-I: PI A Penn, other co-Is M Batty, P Treleaven, A Wilson: EP/M023583/1) £3,999,936

2014

• Economic and Social Research Council: The analysis of names from the 2011 Census of Population (PI: co-Is J Cheshire, A D Singleton: ES/L013800/1). £136,503
• Economic and Social Research Council: Retail Business Datasafe (PI: co-Is M Batty, T Cheng, J Cheshire, T Fischer, C Lloyd, S. Mikhaylov, J Reynolds, A Singleton, P Williamson: ES/L011840/1). £6,117,615

2013

• Economic and Social Research Council: A strategic advisory team for data resources 2014-2016. (co-I: PI P Elias, other co-Is D De Roure, J Hobcraft, K Kiernan: ES/L003414/1). £721,931
• Economic and Social Research Council: The e-resilience of British retail centres. (co-I: PI A Singleton: ES/L003546/1). £127,991
• Economic and Social Research Council: Using secondary data to measure, monitor and visualise spatio-temporal uncertainties in geodemographics (co-I: PI A D Singleton, other co-Is P Batey, C Brunsdon, P Williamson, P Brown: ES/K004719/1). £145,918

2012

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council: Crime, policing and citizenship (CPC) - space-time interactions of dynamic networks (co-I: PI T Cheng, other co-Is J Shawe-Taylor, K Bowers: EP/J004197/1). £1,400,235

2011

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council: The uncertainty of identity: linking spatiotemporal information between virtual and real worlds (PI: co-Is M Musolesi, R Muttukrishnan: EP/J005266/1). £1,218,191

2009

• Wellcome Trust: Genetics of the people of the British Isles and their faces (co-I: PI W F Bodmer, other co-Is P J Donnelly, T Spector, J Kittler: COLL - HDRHJGC). £2,067,797# 
• Economic and Social Research Council/Technology Strategy Board/The Local Futures Group Ltd.: a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to develop participatory mapping technologies (Lead academic: PI A D Singleton). £154,004

2008

• Economic and Social Research Council: Census Geographic Information Visualisation (CensusGIV) (co-I, with P Mateos, M Batty: RES-348-25-0015). £81,744

2007

• Economic and Social Research Council: The Genesis Project: GENerative E-Social Science (co-I, with M Batty, M Birkin, P A Longley, A Heppenstall, A Steed, M C Clarke, J Xu, A G Wilson: RES-149-25-1078). £1,382,477
• Economic and Social Research Council: Business Engagement Award for NCeSS (National Centre for E-Social Science) (co-I, with P Halfpenny: RES-185-31-0003) £98,700
• Economic and Social Research Council: Business solutions for web-based dissemination of the geography of genealogy (PI: RES-172-25-0019). £49,950

2006

• Cabinet Office/City of London Corporation: Linking social deprivation and digital exclusion in England (PI). £10,000

2006

• Economic and Social Research Council (Knowledge Transfer Division): co-funding for conference at the Royal Geographical Society, February. £5,000

2005

• Economic and Social Research Council: GEOVUE: GEOgraphic Virtual Urban Environments (co-I, with M Batty and A Steed: RES-149-25-1023). £420,091

2004

• Economic and Social Research Council/Southwark Primary Care Trust: a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to develop systems to measure and monitor GP referrals and to target health promotion campaigns (PI: KTP000666). £331,584
• Economic and Social Research Council/Camden Primary Care Trust: a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to develop and utilise GIS for neighbourhood profiling and assist in targeting public health and health care delivery (PI: KTP000037). £331,584

2003

• Economic and Social Research Council: Surnames as a quantitative evidence resource for the social sciences (PI, with R. Webber: RES-000-22-0400). £45,551
• Economic and Social Research Council: Senior Fellowship: Geodemographics for managing local services (PI: RES-331-25-0001). £125,168
• Camden Borough Police: sustainable GIS and data sharing infrastructure (PI). £15,000
• Department of Trade and Industry/UCAS Ltd.: a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to develop a student placing service to support applications for admission to higher education institutions (PI: TCS4276). £100,198
• Camden Borough Police: inter-departmental GIS requirements analysis (PI). £3,500
• The Groundwork Trust: inter-departmental GIS requirements analysis (PI). £3,000
• Economic and Social Research Council: Digital differentiation: consumption profiles of fracturing digital divides (PI, with M. Batty, R. Webber, A. Tapp: RES-335-25-0020). £88,222

2002

• ESRC/EPSRC/NERC Transdisciplinary Seminar Series Competition: Realising the potential of urban spatial data infrastructures (PI, with R. Harris) £17,908

2001

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council: Integrated systems for retail company management strategy: a feasibility study of demand-led aspects (co-I, with M. Batty). £45,697