professor-james-higham
  • Name: Professor James Higham
  • Position: University of Otago (New Zealand)

James Higham is a Distinguished Professor at Griffith University (Australia), and Honorary Professor at the University of Otago (New Zealand). James has research interests in sustainable tourism, tourism and global environmental change, and tourism carbon emissions. He is widely published on aspects of tourism relating to climate action, particularly aviation emissions, decarbonising tourist transportation and academic aeromobility. Much of his research and publication is collaborative, with longstanding research collaborations with colleagues in Europe, the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand). He current collaborates on research projects on decarbonising leisure mobilities (Norway Research Council), and reducing global tourism carbon emissions (Australia Research Council) that are being led by Dr. Eivind Farstad (Institute of Transport Economics, Norway) and Dr Ya-Yen Sun (University of Queensland, Australia) respectively. James is affiliated to the Griffith Institute of Tourism (GIFT) and co-chair of GIFT Climate Change Action research cluster. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the University of Otago Transport Research Network, a member of He Kaupapa Hononga (Otago Climate Change Research Network) and affiliate of the University of Otago Centre for Sustainability. His major service roles have included Head of Department (2006-2011), member of the Business and Economics PBRF research assessment panel (2012, 2018), co-editor of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism (2014-2021), and co-director of the University of Otago Tourism Policy School (2019-2023).