Sharing expertise at the Geography in Government Conference

^{Image: Sander Crombach/Unsplash}

The Society recently co-hosted the Geography in Government Conference 2021, providing a platform for geographers across the public sector to share their expertise and experience, while also celebrating the use of geography in government.

This year, the conference focused on the theme of geographic inequalities. Plenaries opened with speakers Paul Holme and James Binks from Manchester City Council bringing regional/city-level perspectives on inequality, and Urvashi Parashar from the Cabinet Office Levelling-Up Unit exploring the role of data and analysis in understanding policy impacts.

From beyond government, Professor Danny Dorling discussed changing inequalities in the UK and levelling-up precedents in Germany, while Doug Specht CGeog closed the conference by discussing the role maps play in influencing and establishing geographic inequalities.

The conference also heard from the 2020 Geography in Government Award winners about their work during the COVID-19 pandemic:  the UKHSA GIS Team, who created UK COVID-19 dashboards as well as other tools for pandemic response, and the ONS Data Science Campus team for identifying changing pedestrian and vehicle movements from traffic cameras.

Find out more about the Government Geography Profession and follow their updates on Twitter.