I read for an honours degree in political economy and agricultural economics at the University of Glasgow, and had a one-year scholarship at the University of the West Indies after graduating. During this time I worked as research assistant for the Tripartite Economic Survey of the Caribbean. I returned to work in the economic planning staff of the then Ministry of Overseas Development in London in 1966, directed by Dudley Seers. I then went to teach development economics at the University of East Anglia, where I also took my PhD. I returned to the Caribbean for 2 years as regional development advisor in the eastern Caribbean, and also worked on my PhD on the economic and social impact of tourism in the region. After some more time at East Anglia, I moved back to Scotland to work with the Highlands and Islands Development Board, resigning in 1979. For the next 15 years I directed the Arkleton Trust, set up and ran the Arkleton Trust (Research) Ltd and the Rurtel computer conferencing and email system, and farmed in Inverness-shire. In 1995 I took the Chair of Human Geography at the University of Aberdeen, and set up and co-directed the Arkleton Institute there with Mark Shucksmith for 9 years. I became an Emeritus Professor at Aberdeen when I retired in 2004. I then directed a small policy research institute at UHI, Inverness before coming to Norway in 2008. I have recently completed a book on Norway and Scotland since the Middle Ages (with Ottar Brox and Lesley Riddoch as co-editors, and a number of other authors from Norway, Scotland, England and Finland), soon to be published by Edinburgh University Press.Specialties: Rural Policy and Regional Policy in Rural RegionsLocal DevelopmentLand ReformRenewable Energy as a Rural Development projectRural-Urban 'equivalence' and human rightsLocal Government in rural areasInclusive and Grounded Innovation in rural resourcesComparative History and Development of Norway and Scotland since the Middle Ages