Dr Simon Cook
Simon is a passionate teacher and researcher with specialisms in human geography, mobilities, physical cultures, and research and academic skills support.
At BCU, I am a Senior Lecturer in the HELS Academic Development Department, providing academic, research and publishing skills support to students and staff in the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences.
His research draws on his background in human geography but operates at the intersection of mobility studies, social and cultural geography, physical cultural studies, and qualitative research in sport, exercise and health. His research concerns everyday active practices: the ways in which they happen, how they change, and what they can tell us about societies and spaces. Simon is currently researching run-commuting, post-collision cycling practices and running during social distancing.
Public engagement is also an important part of Simon’s academic practice, in which he seeks to communicate and share his research with relevant organisations and the wider public in order to improve, educate and entertain.
Current Activity
Simon is currently involved in the following research activities. Please see the Research tab for more details.
- Post-collision cycling practices
- Exercise during social distancing.
- Run-commuting in the UK
- Geographies of active practices
Simon is currently involved in teaching and developing a couple of Master’s level modules:
- LBR7337/7467 Master’s Dissertation
- LBR7559/6585 Essential Academic Skills
- LBR7643/LBR7646 Writing for Academic Publication
Within the HELS Academic Development Department, Simon is:
- Department research coordinator
- Ethics champion
- Lead for research and publishing skills support
Simon is also:
- Personal tutor
- Member of the Faculty Academic Ethics Committee
- Member of the Sport Science for Health and Disease research group in the C-LASS research centre
Areas of Expertise
Research Expertise:
- Active practices
- Social and cultural geographies
- Mobility and transport geographies
- Physical Cultural Studies and Sport geographies
- Running geographies
- Mobile methods
- Everyday geographies
Teaching Expertise:
- Academic writing and critical thinking
- Research and publishing skills
- Qualitative methods
- Social and cultural geographies
- Mobilities and transport geographies
- Sport and exercise geographies
Qualifications
Academic Qualifications:
- (2020) PhD in Human Geography - Royal Holloway University of London
- (2018) Programme in Skills of Teaching to Inspire Learning - Royal Holloway University of London
- (2014) MA in Cultural Geography (Research) - Royal Holloway, University of London
- (2013) BA (Hons) Geography - Plymouth University
Honours and Awards:
- 2022 Shortlisted - Personal Tutor of the Year. I am BCU Awards, Birmingham City University
- 2019 Shortlisted – Geographical Association Award for Excellence in Leading Geography for ‘Geographies of Mobility: A Brief Introduction' published in Geography
- 2017 Mobile Lives Forum New Voices – Award Winner
- 2017 RHUL Postgraduate Teaching Prize – Commendation
- 2017 Co-producing Mobilities paper included within the Routledge Geography Article Collection 2017
- 2016 Co-producing Mobilities paper identified as High Impact Research by Routledge
- 2015 Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award – AAG Transport Geography Specialty Group
- 2013 Best Undergraduate Dissertation in Social and Cultural Geography, RGS-IBG Social and Cultural Research Group – Runner up
- 2013 The Plymouth City Coach Prize for Best Dissertation in Geography - Plymouth University
- 2013 The Geography Prize for Best Overall Performance in Geography - Plymouth University
Memberships
External groups and networks
- Cycling and Trauma Research Network (co-creator and leader)
- Cycling & Society Research Group
- Running Cultures Research Group
- Social and Cultural Geography Research Group – Royal Geographical Society
- Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group – Royal Geographical Society
- Geography and Education Research Group – Royal Geographical Society
- Transport Geography Research Group – Royal Geographical Society
- Universities Transport Study Group
Internal groups and networks
- Sport Sciences for Health and Disease - Centre for Life and Sport Sciences
- Interdisciplinary Life and Sport Science - Centre for Life and Sport Sciences
- Space, Time, and Everyday Life - Centre for the Study of Practice and Culture in Education
- Practitioner Education Research Group - Centre for the Study of Practice and Culture in Education
- Urban Studies Research Network
Professional Referee:
Simon regularly peer-reviews for a range of geography, transport, mobilities, sport, health and education journals, including:
- Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health
- International Review for the Sociology of Sport
- Wellbeing, Space & Society
- Social Sciences
- Mobilities
- Social Science & Medicine
- Ethnography
- Applied Mobilities
- Area
- Leisure/Loisir
- Leisure Studies
- Journal of Transport Geography
- GeoJournal
- Journal of Geography in Higher Education
- Geoforum
- Active Travel Studies
- Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education
- Routes: The Journal for Student Geographers
Teaching
Teaching areas:
- Academic skills
- Research skills
- Social and cultural geographies
- Mobilities
- Sport geographies
- Qualitative methods
Courses taught on:
- LBR7643/LBR7646 Writing for Academic Publication
- LBR7337 MSc Dissertation
- LBR7467 MSc Dissertation
- LBR7559 Essential Academic Skills for Master’s-Level Study
- LBR6585 Essential Academic Skills for Degree-Level Study
Research
Simon’s research concerns everyday active practices: the ways in which they happen, how they change, and what they can tell us about societies and spaces. Collectively, this work seeks to bridge disciplinary perspectives on the active moving body, working between geography, sport, mobilities, transport, health and physical cultural studies. Simon is currently involved in the following projects.
Post-collision cycling practices
This project seeks to explore previously unresearched post-collision cycling practices. It is interested in what happens to cyclists and their practices following collisions and what the experiences of this are. It hopes to inform work supporting cyclists after collisions and help to maintain cycling practices, contributing to the production of cycling societies.
Exercise during social distancing
In collaboration with Sam Hayes at the University of Salford, this project seeks to explore experiences and perceptions of exercising during the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for social distancing in the UK. Using Twitter data, we are exploring how lockdown measures illuminates, exacerbates, changes or impact exercises practices in the UK and the politics of these.
Run-commuting in the UK
Simon’s PhD research was the first large-scale study into run-commuting. It sought to understand how run-commuting emerged, happens and the potential it has in the UK. He spent five years surveying, interviewing and running alongside run-commuters around the UK to better understand this mobile practice.
Geographies of active practices
Through a range of collaboration, this meta-project aims to review and set agendas for variety of topics that collectively identify the state-of-art and develops the future of research into the geographies of active practices. This includes a collaboration with Rachel Aldred, Tom Cohen and Lorna Stevenson (at the University of Westminster) into active travel beyond walking and cycling; with Sarah Bell (University of Exeter) into healthy mobilities; with Pete Adey (Royal Holloway University of London) into the relationship between mobility and sport studies; and with Jonas Larsen (Roskilde University) into the geographies of running.
Postgraduate Supervision
Simon currently supervises MSc dissertations across the Faculty.
Simon welcomes doctoral students working on qualitative projects, particularly into topics related to geography, mobility, transport, sport, exercise and health.
Publications
Books
- Cook, S. (under contract) The Rise of Run-Commuting, Routledge, Abingdon.
- Cook, S. and Waite, C. (under contract) An Introduction to the Geographies of Sport, Exercise and Physical Cultures, Routledge, Abingdon.
Journal Articles
- Cook, S., Stevenson, L., Aldred, R., Kendall, M. and Cohen, T. (2022) More than walking and cycling: what is ‘active travel’? Transport Policy, 126: pp.151-161.
- Cook, S. (2022) ‘Running with a bag: encumbrance, materiality and rhythm’ Social & Cultural Geography. Online First. DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2022.2052169.
- Bell, S. and Cook, S. (2021) ‘Healthy mobilities’ Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies. 11(2): pp.98-108. DOI: 10.3167/TRANS.2021.110207
- Liu, Y., Alnababtah, K., Cook, S. and Yu, Y. (2021) ‘Healthcare providers’ perception of faecal microbiota transplantation with clostridium difficile infection and inf.lammatory bowel disease: a quantitative systematic review’ Therapeutic Advances in Gastroenterology, 14: pp.1–17. DOI: 10.1177/17562848211042679.
- Cook, S. (2021) ‘Geographies of run-commuting in the UK’ Journal of Transport Geography, 92: 103038. DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2021.103038.
- Cook, S. (2018) 'Geographies of Mobility: A Brief Introduction' Geography, 103(3): pp.137-145.
- Cook, S., Shaw, J., and Simpson, P. (2016) ‘Jography: Exploring Meanings, Experiences and Spatialities of Recreational Road-running’ Mobilities, 11(5): pp.744-769.
- Cook, S., Davidson, A., Stratford, E., Middleton, J., Plyushteva, A., Fitt, H., Cranston, S., Simpson, P., Delaney, H., Evans, K., Jones, A., Kershaw, J., Williams, N., Bissell, D., Duncan, T., Sengers, F., Elvy, J., and Wilmott, C. (2016) ‘Co-Producing Mobilities: negotiating geographical knowledge in a conference session on the move’ Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 40 (3): pp.340-374.
Book Contributions
- Coen, S.E., Cook, S., and Hayes, S.J. ‘Pandemic Geographies of Physical Activity’ in Andrews, G.J., Crooks, V.A., Pearce, J.R. and Messina, J.P. (eds) COVID-19 and Similar Futures: Pandemic Geographies, Springer, London: pp.165-172. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-70179-6_21.
- Cook, S. (2020) 'Researching the run: methods for exploring mundane jographies' in: Holmes, H. and Hall, S.M (eds) Mundane Methods, Manchester University Press, Manchester: pp.193-210.
- Cook, S. (2017) ‘Rushing, dashing, scrambling: The role of the train station in producing the reluctant runner’ in: Spinney, J., Reimer, S. and Pinch, P. (eds) Mobilising Design, Designing Mobilities: Intersections, Affordances, Relations, Routledge, Abingdon: pp.62-75.
- Cook, S., Shaw, J., and Simpson, P. (2016) ‘Running Order: Urban Public Space, Everyday Citizenship and Sporting Subjectivities’ in: Koch, N. (ed.) Critical Geographies of Sport: Space, Power and Sport in Global Perspective, Routledge, Abingdon: pp.157-172.
- Cook, S. (2016) ‘Run-commuting’ in: Sultana, S. and Weber, J. (eds) Minicars, Maglevs, and Mopeds: Modern Modes of Transportation Around the World, ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Press, Santa Barbara, California: pp.255-258.
Book Reviews
- Cook, S. (2022) 'The Walkable City by Jennie Middleton' cultural geographies.
- Cook, S. (2019) 'Transit Life by David Bissell' Journal of Transport Geography, 78: pp.230-231.
- Cook, S. (2016) ‘A Jensenian approach to mobilities’ Journal of Transport Geography, 52: pp. 159–161.
- Cook, S. (2015)‘Mobility, space and culture by Peter Merriman Abingdon: Routledge, 2012, 214 pp notes and index, £85.00 hardcover, ISBN 978 0 415 59356 4’ Area, 47(2): pp.214-215.
Media Work
Simon has run the website Jographies since 2013 which brings geographical perspectives on running to a public audience. It has a regular audience of over 6,000 people and has engaged over 25,000 unique visitors. The site also acts as a hub and resource for the running studies community, particularly through the ‘I’m a Running Researcher’ profile series
Simon has written for a range of media outlets about his work on running, including:
His work into running and run-commuting has been featured in over 50 national, international and specialist media outlets, including:
- “The Secret Life of the Running Geographer” Runner’s World UK profile
- The Telegraph
- Huffington Post
- The Financial Times
- GQ Magazine
- Runner’s World UK
- Athletics Weekly
- Women’s Running UK
- Men’s Running UK
- The Centre for London
- The Coca-Cola Company
Simon has been the featured interviewee on three podcast episodes:
- Physical Activity Researcher Podcast Part 1
- Physical Activity Research Podcast Part 2
- Running for the Wine Podcast
He led the award-winning educational film society Passengerfilms between 2014 and 2016. Passengerfilms is a car-crash of cinema and geography, bringing hot topics from geography to London’s film going public.
Work With Industry
- (2020) Ambassador, Advisor and Brains Trust member for the RunSome Campaign.
- (2020) Expert interviewee for Sport England’s 10-year strategic forecasting insight work.
- (2015) Advised and helped launch a run-commuting scheme at the University of Manchester.