Professor Leigh Sparks FRSE
Professor of Retail Studies, University of Stirling
Leigh Sparks was a geography undergraduate at the University of Cambridge and completed his PhD at the University of Wales.
He has been Professor of Retail Studies at Stirling since 1992 and was Deputy Principal at the University for 8 years. Professor Sparks has been a Visiting Professor at Florida State University and the University of Tennessee. He has authored and edited a number of books, has published over 125 refereed journal articles as well as many practitioner, trade and newspaper pieces and runs a Scottish retailing blog.
He has extensive expertise in international research and teaching including periods in Japan and Malaysia and especially in Singapore where Stirling has had active partnerships since the late 1980s.
Professor Sparks is the Chair of Scotland’s Towns Partnership. He was a member of the Scottish Government’s National Town Centres Review and the Expert Advisory Group investigating the lessons of the horsemeat scandal. He chaired the Government review of the Town Centre Action Plan and wrote the report ‘A New Future for Scotland’s Town Centres’. He has also been on the Ministerial Retail Strategy Task Force and The Social Renewal Advisory Board.
