Joe Smith

Joe is Senior Lecturer in Environment The Open University. He is a social scientist specialising in the policy and politics of consumption (food and transport), the history of environmental politics and media and environment.

His teaching spans foundation to Masters and PhD level, with a particular emphasis on innovative online and interactive learning. He has collaborated with and consulted for the BBC since 1996, running a series of seminars on environmental change and development issues for senior media decision makers, mainly from BBC News and Vision. He has also acted as academic consultant on a number of major TV projects including Sir David Attenborough’s BBC One programmes for the 2006 climate change season, BBC Two’s Coast (2005), the world’s first climate change political thriller Burn Up (BBC Two 2008) and Springwatch (BBC Two 2010) as well as five hours of climate-related BBC World Service radio programming (Climate Connections 2009 & 2010) and six BBC World News broadcasts (Hope in a Changing World 2009 & Earth Reporters 2011). The BBC World and World Service projects were commissioned as part of the Creative Climate project, devised by Joe, which seeks to capture human stories of ingenuity and determination in response to environmental change 2010-2020. Creative Climate includes broadcasts, online participation and the development of free online learning materials. In 2011 the project commissioned a body of ten short films by leading UK film school talent.

Joe holds a BA degree in Social and Political Sciences and a PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge, and has held a postdoctoral fellowship in Geography there (1995-2000) and visiting fellowships at Clare Hall (2005/6) and CRASSH (2008/09). He is also a Director of Smith of Derby Ltd, one of the world’s leading and longest standing makers and restorers of public clocks, being one of the fifth generation of Smiths involved in the business.