In the latest episode of Placecast, Professor Michael Woods, Director of the Cymru Wledig LPIP (Rural Wales), offers a rich and thoughtful journey through Welsh devolution, rural policy, and the power of deeply embedded place-based research. It’s a conversation that blends decades of academic insight with a grounded understanding of how communities, policymakers, and researchers mutually shape one another.
Placecast is a Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Hub production based at City-REDI, University of Birmingham. Our new podcast is essential listening for those keen to explore the ins and outs of knowledge mobilisation for influence in central and local government, based on the view that it’s only through animating the power of place-based leadership that the wicked problems of 2026 can become more manageable.
Professor Michael Woods is the Director of the Cymru Wledig LPIP (Rural Wales), the Local Policy and Innovation Partnership for Rural Wales. It connects academic researchers, public bodies, third and private sector organisations and communities to enhance the use of research and innovation to support effective policy-making, sustainable regional development, and the wellbeing of people and places across rural Wales.
Michael Woods joined Aberystwyth University as a Lecturer in Human Geography in 1996, became Professor in 2008, and has since held major leadership roles, including Director of the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences and Professor of Transformative Social Science. A leading rural and political geographer, he co-directs WISERD@Aberystwyth, has led major international projects such as the ERC-funded GLOBAL-RURAL and Horizon 2020 IMAJINE, and previously co-directed the Wales Rural Observatory. He is Editor of the Journal of Rural Studies, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Learned Society of Wales, and an award‑winning researcher with visiting posts in China, Slovenia and Australia, as well as service on the Welsh Government’s Independent Review of Student Finance.
Dr Nicola Headlam has over 20 years of experience working across all aspects of the multi-helix innovation system, including central and local government, civil society and campaigning, academic research and knowledge mobilisation, and industry. Along the way, she has honed her expertise in urban and regional subnational economic development, the roles of government in shaping place, and in utilising data and evidence for transformation.
In 2024, she became a freelance economic advisor on the role of leadership and partnerships, urban and living lab forms for research, future of cities and foresighting methods, urban transformations, place-branding and urban regeneration and the spatial consequences of public policy.
Find out more about the LPIP Hub.