Jim Longhurst is Professor of Environmental Science and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Environment and Technology (FET).  With Judy Orme Jim is co-Director of the Institute for Sustainability, Health and Environment and he is also the Director of the Air Quality Management Resource Centre.

Jim is an environmental scientist with BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from Plymouth, Aston and Birmingham Universities.

Jim is a Vice President, Company Secretary, director and trustee of the UK Institution of Environmental Sciences and a Fellow of the Institution. He is a former chair of the IES Council serving for a 4 year period of office during which he oversaw the relocation of the IES office to a new London base, increased the membership, saw the award of a license to award chartered status to members and led the development of a new constitution for the IES

He has held the post of chair of the UK Committee of Heads of Environmental Sciences on two occasions during which time CHES increased its membership amongst UK universities.  Jim led the development of a new constitution for CHES, promoted and developed links with sister organisations in the US and Canada and linked CHES with the IES to introduce an accreditation scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes. Jim was a member of the QAA Panel producing the Benchmark Statement for Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences and Environmental Studies in 2000. Between 2005 and 2007 he chaired the panel producing Minor Revisions to the Benchmark Statement for Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences and Environmental Studies, Through his role as Chair of CHES Jim is a co-author and signatory of the Gland Declaration establishing the World Conservation Learning Network (WCLN), a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Commission on Education and Communication and has represented the  IUCN on  the UN University - UNESCO Ubuntu Committee of Peers for the designation of Regional Centres of Excellence in Education for Sustainable Development (2006 onwards).

He was a founder member of the LTSN GEES Subject Centre Steering Group, stepping down in 2006. In 2008, he returned to the GEES Advisory Board as co-Chair.

Jim is a former member of the Board of Directors of Society for the Environment and Board member of the Science Council. Jim took a leading role in promoting the formation of Society for the Environment and he was one of the first Chartered Environmentalists (CEnv) in the UK.

Amongst other distinctions Jim is a Fellow of the Wessex Institute of Great Britain (FWIGB) and his biographical details were first included in Who’s Who in 2004.

Jim is an active and long-standing member of the Environmental Protection-UK (formerly the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection).

Jim has a long research history in air pollution science and policy. He founded the Acid Rain Information Centre (ARIC) in 1984, later renamed the Atmospheric Research and Information Centre,  which from 1986 was based at Manchester Polytechnic now Manchester Metropolitan University. Jim’s major research interests at this time were urban acid deposition and emissions from large combustion plant. From 1986, Jim advised the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and the Manchester Area Pollution Advisory Council on acid deposition and air pollution management. He published extensively in these areas from the mid 1980s, supervised several PhDs to completion and served as a member of the UK Review Group on Acid Rain. In the late 1980s Jim developed an interest in the air pollution effects of airports and commencing with Manchester Airport advised numerous airports in Europe on air pollution management strategies. He published several important contributions in the peer review literature and was a keynote speaker at major international conferences including Ecology 90 held in Gothenburg and Airport Noise and Air Pollution – the impact on airport capacity organised by ICAA and held in Brussels in 1990. He also organised important conferences for the aviation industry held at Manchester Airport (1990 & 1993) and then Birmingham Airport (1991).

In the late 1980s – early 1990s Jim further developed his interest in the history of urban air pollution especially the rich history to be found in the Manchester conurbation as well as pursuing new interests in air quality management, carbon management and emission inventorying. In this period he supervised further PhD candidates to completion, published extensively in the peer review literature and continued to advise local authorities on air quality and acid deposition issues. During this time Jim developed some of the first air quality management plans in the UK. His longstanding role as adviser to the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities enabled these authorities to develop their capacity and capability to meet the demands of the new Environment Act published in 1995.  

In parallel with his research interests in air pollution Jim has always believed that it is the duty of an academic to ensure that information is provided to the public that will enable them to engage with and understand some of the excitement, challenge and complexity of the discipline. To this end Jim ensured that ARIC placed as much emphasis on its public information obligation as on its other tasks. This commitment led to the formation of a public information programme on acid deposition in 1986 and climate change in 1989 both supported by the Department of the Environment and a wide range of NGOs, public and private sector bodies in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the USA and Canada.

In the late 1980s Jim’s developing interests in sustainable development led to a number of publications culminating in his key role in organising the 1994 Global Forum on Sustainable Development in Manchester where he chaired a number of sessions and jointly edited the proceedings with Stephen Dalton and David Gibbs.

Jim has had several periods as a visiting academic. In 1988 he was a visiting researcher at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SNV), Solna supported by a grant from the Swedish EPA. In 1994 he was a Visiting Professor at Academia Istropolitana in Bratislava, Slovak Republic supported by the British Council Know-How Fund and in 1996 he was a Visiting Professor at   ITEMA, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, in Barcelona, supported by a grant from UPC.

Jim’s continuing interests in the urban environment and the ideas of sustainable development led to two important pieces of research with David Gibbs (Professor of Human Geography at Hull University). Firstly, an ESRC funded project exploring local authority expectations and capabilities in respect of environment and sustainable development and, secondly, an EPSRC funded research project examining the opportunities for, and barriers to, a low carbon Manchester.

In 1996 Jim joined UWE, Bristol where he has remained ever since. He has undertaken a range of leadership roles for the university culminating in his current role as Associate Dean in FET with responsibilities for the Academic Portfolio, Research Ethics, External Affairs, Equalities Management and Environment and Sustainability.

In 1998 Jim founded the Air Quality Management Resource Centre  (AQMRC) as a research and knowledge exchange centre to pursue his interests in the research and practice of air quality management. In the period since its formation AQMRC has been acknowledged nationally and internationally as one of the leading centres for the study of air quality and the development of practical air quality management strategies. Jim’s long term interest in the development of policy based on high quality scientific evidence has led to AQMRC being pivotally positioned at the interface of air quality science and policy and able to work across the interface with equal assurance and capability.

AQMRC’s work includes advice and guidance for local authorities in the UK and consulting services for UK government and devolved administrations on local air quality management. This work for government has been provided since 1998 through 4 successive contracts. In this work AQMRC are partnered by Air Quality Consultants Ltd one of the world’s leading consultancies for air quality. AQC Ltd is led by Professor Duncan Laxen who is a visiting professor at UWE.

Under Jim’s guidance AQMRC has produced an extensive body of peer reviewed literature on local air quality management (LAQM). In addition, a significant body of PhD research has been supervised to completion covering efficiency and effectiveness of the local air quality management process, interrelationships between LAQM and other policy processes and the development of tools to enhance the effectiveness of LAQM.  The expertise of AQMRC has led to major contributions to EU funded projects in Asia and Europe. Jim has a particular interest in the management challenges of mega cities such as Beijing, Sao Paulo, and Mexico City. He has been an invited international expert in each of these cities assisting in capacity development and enhancement of the institutional capability to manage air quality.  The international expertise of AQMRC led to their involvement in the development of the National Framework for Air Quality on behalf of the South African government Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. In partnership with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, NILU and CSIR this major project saw the UK experience of LAQM distilled and transferred to a new context and structure appropriate for the needs of South Africa.

Jim currently is supervising 4 research fellows/associates and 6 PhD students.    He has edited 8 books and published more than 200 refereed publications and reports.

Jim has organised a significant number of international air quality conferences and in 2006 and 2008 was a co-Chair for the annual Air Pollution Conference organised by the Wessex of Institute of Technology. Read his opening address from the Sixteenth International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution, 22-24th September 2008. Jim will again be in the conference chair for the eighteenth International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution.

Jim’s interests in carbon management began in the 1990s with a range of carbon emission inventory projects, developed with the EPSRC case study of Manchester and continue today with an innovative EPSRC CASE Award with the Centre for Sustainable Energy and Bristol City Council, exploring carbon futures for  the Bristol region.

Jim maintains his primary academic research interest in air quality management where he continues to publish regularly in the peer-reviewed literature and to contribute to international conferences. He was editor of the WIT Advances in Air Pollution series (1998 - 2006), is an Editorial Board Member for the WIT Transactions in Ecology and the Environment (2005-to date) and the Environmentalist (1992-to date).

Alongside Jim’s interest in air quality he has maintained his interest in sustainable development. He served as a member of the Advisory Board for the Natural Step, UK for many years and in UWE he leads the Knowledge Exchange for Sustainability Education initiative, a cross university initiative to promote sustainable development awareness across the UWE curriculum. Jim plays a significant role in the university’s Sustainability Board and was one of the authors of UWE’s Sustainability Strategy.  In his role as co director of ISHE Jim provides cross-university leadership in  research, knowledge exchange and programme development in sustainability, health and environment.

Jim is a member of the board of the Bristol Environmental Technologies Sector  (BETS) a trade association and sector partnership between businesses, academia, investors, local authorities, regional and national agencies promoting the growth of the environmental technologies and services sector in the Bristol city-region. On behalf of BETS Jim is leading a sector sub group on skills development and training needs.

Jim is a former member of the Board of Sustainability SW and of Wessex Water’s Environment and Public Health Advisory Panel.   He is a member of the GWR Sustainability Panel and in 2008 was invited by the GWR Strategy and Management Board to become the new chair of the panel. On behalf of GWR Jim is one of a team promoting the ACRE project to position the SW as the leading UK region for research, development and implementation of renewable energy.

Jim relaxes by worrying about the fortunes of West Ham, enjoys walking in the Austrian Alps (click here for a topographic map of Austria), listening to the music of Ian Hunter, Mott the Hoople, Neil Young, and Tom Petty amongst others, reading the novels of John Irving, Jasper Fforde and Christopher Brookmyre and laughing at the cartoons of Berkeley Breathed. He finds the CIA World Factbook an incredibly useful source of information (go and check it out at: www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/) and thinks that FreeFoto.com is an amazing picture resource. Go and see for yourself at www.freefoto.com.