Professor Joyce Liddle of Policy&Practice welcomed a Colombian doctoral student, Santiago Rodriguez Tabaquiro to our North East region for a three-month research visit between September and December 2024. She is jointly supervising his PhD research at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, where she led the research centre for Public Management, Governance and Regional Development (IMPGT) between 2011-2017.

Santiago is focusing on ‘Shared mobility solutions in public transportation networks’, with a special focus on car pooling, car sharing, car clubs and other micro-mobility solutions to urban and rural transport. His chosen case study here in the UK is the Newcastle and Gateshead metropolitan area which he will compare with his findings on the Aix-Marseille Metropolitan.

He will be undertaking a series of interviews with senior policy personnel and politicians in urban and rural governance across the wider North East region. In particular he will meet with those shaping transport policies in NEXUS, North East transport authorities, local authorities and the Mayor’s Office at the North East Combined Authority. Santiago is working in collaboration with researchers at Insights North East (INE), a University-wide research collaboration of which the University of Durham is a key member.

Santiago is happy to share his findings with other researchers, and if time allows before he returns to France, he will join us at St Chads to discuss his research work