Dr Harley Pope

 

Dr Harley Pope

Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning Coordinator

University of Reading 

Dr Harley Pope is the Innovative Food Systems Teaching& Learning (IFSTAL) educational coordinator at the University of Reading. He also lectures on food security and development. Harley is an interdisciplinary social scientist with wide-ranging research interests that consider how the ways in which we perceive the world impacts on our collective welfare and the wider environment. He is particularly drawn to the role that system boundaries play in both habituating and unlocking patterns of behaviour so that we can pursue pathways to sustainability.

Harley manages a pan-European, interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching programme whose aim is to develop the capacity of postgraduate students to become food system analysts. His current focus is on how to teach systems thinking quickly and effectively to people with differing professional and personal backgrounds. Harley also lectures on diverse topics such as food security, urban agriculture and development, ecosystems services, resilience, sustainability, futures and systems thinking. Prior to joining the University of Reading, he worked as a researcher at the University of Sussex on the topic of urban ecosystem services and agriculture to an Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) project operating in Delhi. He completed his PhD at the University of Sussex, entitled, “Participatory Crop Improvement: The challenges of and opportunities for institutionalisation in the Indian Public Research Sector.”