Harry Smith is a Professor in Global Urbanism and Head of the Research Centre for Urban Studies at the Institute for Place, Environment and Society.  He has expertise in community empowerment, participatory processes, and user involvement in urban planning, design and management in the UK, Europe, Latin America and Africa. His work focuses on the co-production of knowledge that addresses urban inequalities and promotes spatial social justice, particularly in the Global South. He has led and co-led transdisciplinary international research and impact projects developing community-led solutions for disaster risk management and climate change adaptation in urban and peri-urban areas in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico.

Human settlements in the rapidly urbanising world, mainly looking at planning, urban design and housing (with a particular focus on Latin America); community-led and participatory processes in urban development and management; user involvement in the production of the built environment; disaster risk management and climate change adaptation in urban settings, including through nature-based solutions; participatory action-research and co-production of knowledge towards spatial social justice.

Trained as an Architect at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (1990), Spain, where he worked in private practice. MSc in Urban & Regional Planning (Developing Countries) in 1996 (Dissertation was on Curitiba, Brazil), followed by a PhD in Planning and Housing focused on low-income housing in Costa Rica in 2000, both at Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University. He worked in the private sector as an architect and planner in Edinburgh between 1996 and 2000, and as Central Development Officer at Community Self-Build Scotland, Glasgow, 2000/01. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Planning & Housing, Edinburgh College of Art (1999/2000 and 2001/02), and then at the School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University (2002/04), working on a range of projects including participatory planning in the UK, Europe and Latin America.

Since 2004, he has been a full-time academic at what is now the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, becoming a Professor in Global Urbanism in 2019. From 2010 to 2019 he was Director of the Centre for Environment & Human Settlements and he is currently Head of the Research Centre for Urban Studies within the Institute for People, Place and Society.

From 2006 to 2010 he was co-coordinator of the Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South (N-AERUS), contributing to the organisation of annual conferences in London, Edinburgh, Rotterdam and Brussels. Since 2007, he is a Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute. He is a member of the editorial boards of Urban Design and Planning and Open House International: Sustainable & Smart Architecture and Urban Studies.

Since 2013 he is the co-Director of the MSc Urban Strategies and Design, jointly delivered with the University of Edinburgh. He teaches Urban Design Theory and Urbanisation in the Global South.