Dr Lee Pugalis
Dr Lee Pugalis is based at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. He specialises in economic development, regeneration, enterprise and urban planning based on knowledge that he has accumulated during an action packed career spanning local, regional and national government, academia and consultancy. He is a Chartered Town Planner (MRTPI) and Chartered Economic Development practitioner (MIED). He is also a member of the Regional Studies Association (RSA), Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE), Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) and Urban Design Group (UDG).
Preceding a move to Northumbria University in 2011, Lee was head of the Strategic Economic Change service at Durham County Council where he directed the County Durham Economic Partnership; engaged in Local Enterprise Partnership development and City-Region collaboration. For several years Lee was a member of the Chief Economic Development Officers’ Society (CEDOS). Prior to this, Lee was the Regeneration Specialist Advisor to One North East Regional Development Agency where he helped manage a £100m investment programme, and develop the Regional Economic Strategy.
He has over 100 publications to his name and is working on a book about ‘Enterprising Places’. He is the UK Editor of the journal Local Economy, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Good Governance and Sustainable Development in Africa, Associate Editor of Leadership and Policy Quarterly, and is a member of several international editorial boards including the Journal of Urban Planning and Development and the International Journal of Public Sector Management. He is Guest Editor of numerous themed issues relating to his specialist areas. He has also edited government reports and directly contributed to planning policy pushlished by the Stationery Office.
He holds a PhD investigating ‘The Production of Choice Places’ (2010) supported by an Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) Scholarship by competition, Masters in Town Planning (2007), Masters in Planning and Environment Research (2006), Postgraduate Diploma in Urban Design (2005) and a First Class Bachelor of Arts in Town Planning (2003). All obtained from Newcastle University, which then led to a Visiting Fellowship at the Global Urban Research Unit (GURU).
Lee was a member of the BURA Strategy and Development Forum, has written reports for the Institute of Economic Development (IED) and is a frequent contributor to Town & Country Planning, Regions, New Start and Urban Design magazines. He was a board member of the North East Regional Information Partnership (NERIP) until its dissolution in 2011 and currently serves on the board of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), which is an independent think/doing organisation and network of organisations involved in regeneration, economic development and local governance, and is the Vice-Chair of the Urban Design Network.
Current research projects and assignments include:
- Regeneration in an Age of Austerity
- From Regionalism to Localism: Cross Country LEPs
- Enterprising Places
- European Structural Funds and Cohesion Policy
- The Rescaling of Planning and Economic Development
- The Production and Application of Local Economic Assessments
- (Re)appraising Place-Based Economic Development Strategies
- Rapid Urbanisation in Developing Countries