Michael Jones - Biography#

With a first degree in geography and history (1966), Michael Richard Handley Jones completed a doctorate: 'Some responses in human geography to land uplift in the Vasa area, Finland: with special reference to Maxmo commune' (1972), both from the University of London. He taught part-time in London (1968) and then at the University of Helsinki (1970). He was a research assistant at the Finnish Forest Research Institute (1969-72) and then worked at the Agricultural University of Norway (1973-75), where he held a fellowship from the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities for investigations into Norwegian land reorganization.

In 1975, he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Trondheim (later the Norwegian University of Science and Technology), becoming Associate Professor in 1981, and full Professor from 1985. He was academic advisor to the Centre for Environment and Development, responsible for the research programme on environmental management at the University of Trondheim (1993-96). He headed the Landscape, Law and Justice research programme at the Centre for Advanced Study, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (2002-2003). He was elected as a foreign member of the Academy of Letters, Antiquities and History in Stockholm in 1999 and as a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo in 2003. He was elected member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in Trondheim in 2000.

Michael Jones has co-edited the Norwegian Geographical Journal since 1999 (serving as editor-in-chief 2006-2014), and has succeeded in bringing Scandinavian scholarship to a wide international audience.

As well as two monographs and eleven edited volumes, he has published numerous influential papers in English, Norwegian and Swedish. Professor Michael Jones is a very active participant in the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape, convening the 18th session in Norway in 1998.

He was a visiting research scholar at the University of Edinburgh for one year (1985-86), and visiting teaching professor at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (6 weeks 1992), and the University of Turku, Finland (3 weeks 1993, 1995). He was visiting research professor at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Denmark (6 months, 1996-97). In 2007, he was visiting teaching professor for one week at the China University of Technology, Taiwan.

Professor Jones has received research grants from the Norwegian Research Councils for several projects including : land tenure and landscape change in island fishing communities, central Norway; land reallotment in Norway; cultural survivals of Norse land tenure related to 'udal law' in Orkney and Shetland; alternative agricultural landscapes in Norway; comparison of environmental policies in several West European countries.

From 1999 to 2002, he participated in a research project into customary rights, cultural practice and biodiversity in Norwegian mountain areas. He was on the steering committee for the Research Programme on Cultural Landscape under the Research Council of Norway (1991-96), and edited social-science contributions to the final results. He participated with Swedish and Finnish researchers in a project on the maritime cultural landscape of the Gulf of Bothnia region (1987-88); and in 1989 worked on mapping the original natural landscape of the medieval city of Trondheim. In 1995 he helped to assess three Norwegian sites on UNESCO's World Heritage List. In 1995-96 he advised on the research programme on landscape as cultural heritage at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research.