Professor Neale Blair

Overview

Neale Blair is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment (BSABE) at Ulster University. He was appointed Associate Head of BSABE in 2017. Neale is an expert in spatial planning policy and practice. Neale holds a PhD in regional spatial planning and is an active member of Ulster’s Built Environment Research Institute (BERI) and Centre for Research on Property and Planning (RPP).

External connections include chartered membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE), and member of the National Planning Knowledge Group for the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR). Neale is currently Deputy Chair of the Planning Schools Forum, which represents RTPI-accredited Planning Schools, and is a member of the RTPI's Education and Lifelong Learning Committee (ELLC). Neale chaired the Advisory Group that reviewed the Subject Benchmark Statement for Town and Country Planning (2024) and was External Examiner at the University of Manchester 2019-2023.

Current research interests include spatial governance and analysis; urban planning pedagogy, planning education in developing countries; visualisation of data to inform stakeholder engagement and decision making; and the use of technology – including Gen AI – to enhance participation in planning processes.  Neale has twenty years’ experience of research in cross-border spatial planning, working with stakeholders in the public, private and community sectors. Neale has been an external and internal PhD examiner and is an active PhD supervisor, currently supervising three doctoral students in Planning at Ulster. Publications include topics such as a social-ecological resilience agenda for urban design; 3D technology for enhancing resilience in the built environment; and the Dublin-Belfast Economic Corridor (DBEC).