Visiting Professors
Michael Dower has been a regular face in the Institute
since 1996, taking semi-retirement in 2002. He continues to
work with the CCRI, in particular in relation to international rural development, and contributes to the Institute’s MSc course in European Rural Development. He is currently active in three major European initiatives - the PREPARE partnership for Rural Europe; ARC, the Agricultural and Rural Convention 2020, which brings together a wide range of NGOs to lobby for a sustainable future Common Agricultural Policy; and the database of initiatives in practical sustainability in rural Europe, which is being prepared by the network Forum Synergies with funding from the ‘Fondation pour le Progres de l’Homme’. 
David Gibbon has a background as an agriculturalist but worked for many years in rural development based at the University of East Anglia (Development Studies). Now based in Shropshire, David has worked in many countries in Africa and Asia on small farm systems research and development. He has an interest in all aspects of sustainable agriculture and rural livelihoods and in community participation, social learning and action to manage landscapes and futures. David has participated in a number of recent research activities with CCRI colleagues, including the project entitled ‘Evaluation of key factors that lead to successful agri-environment co-operative schemes’.
Bill Slee, who is a previous CCRI Director, has retained a Visiting Professorship at the CCRI since his departure in September 2006 to head up the Socio-Economics Research Group at the James Hutton Institute, (formerly the Macaulay Institute), in Aberdeen. Bill’s recent work has reflected the James Hutton Institute’s strong interest in interdisciplinary science and its role in addressing pressing challenges such as climate change and natural resource management conflicts. He is a partner in the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) project REFRESH, which looks at climate change impacts on water systems in Europe. Bill has recently been involved as lead author on the successful tender for a new 5-year Scottish Government funded research programme and is responsible for theme 8: Vibrant rural communities. In 2011, he co-edited a book entitled 'Innovation in forestry. Territorial and value chain relationships', with Gerhard Weiss, Davide Pettenella and Pekka Ollonqvist.
Ken Thomson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Aberdeen, and currently part-time theme leader at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen. He has acted as a consultant for various organisations, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in Rome, and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in Washington DC. At CCRI, he has assisted Janet Dwyer on the EU funded RuDI and CAPRI-RD projects (see the Economy and Society funded projects section). He has also worked on the now-completed EU projects TERA (territorial aspects of enterprise development in remote rural areas), TERA-SIAP (a typology of European rural areas), and RURAL-ECMOD (spatial analysis of rural development policy). Currently he is engaged on 'payments for ecosystems services', and an input-output analysis of Shetland's economy.
As at 1 August 2011
