Nottingham geographer wins prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize

An urban geographer at the University of Nottingham has been awarded a prestigious 2025 Philip Leverhulme Prize for his research.

Dr Tom Cowan, Associate Professor in the School of Geography, has received one of the Leverhulme Trust’s prizes in recognition of his work on agrarian urbanisation and digital geographies.

His research has examined extended urbanisation in North India with a particular interest in the creation of urban real estate markets, and deployment property digitisation programmes within agrarian settings.

In particular, Dr Cowan’s research has asserted that mass urban expansion in contemporary India is being facilitated by the selective incorporation of agrarian institutions, capital, actor and territories into urban development projects; a process he terms ‘agrarian city-making.’ His more recent research, supported by a British Academy Wolfson Fellowship, has traced the social and technical politics of large-scale property digitization programmes in contemporary India.

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