Ricky Burdett is Professor of Urban Studies and leads LSE Cities, a global centre of research and teaching, at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) which received The Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education for its work on ‘Shaping Urban Leaders and Cities of the Future’. He teaches courses on social inclusion, planning and urban design in the Executive MSc in Cities and other programmes at LSE. He established the Urban Age programme which held conferences and carried out research on global metropolitan centres – including Mexico City, Addis Ababa, Istanbul, Delhi and London – developing and disseminating pioneering urban data analysis, mapping and interdisciplinary research methodologies that connect urban form and the built environment to social equity, environmental sustainability and good governance.

With his colleagues at LSE Cities, he is developing a major four-year training and research programme for European mayors and city leaders in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Hertie School of Government in Berlin. He co-founded (with Professor Mariana Mazzucato) the Council on Urban Initiatives - jointly organised by UN Habitat, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and LSE Cities - which brought together urban leaders with academics, planners, designers and activists.

Outside LSE, Burdett was a member of the influential Urban Task Force Report (Towards an Urban Renaissance) chaired by Richard Rogers which has shaped government policy in the UK in recent decades and a member of the UK Government Airport Commission. He was Council member of the Royal College of Art and a Cultural Ambassador, a member of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board and Trustee of the Norman Foster Foundation based in Madrid. He is a trustee of the Ria Foundation in Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Following his role as adviser to the Mayor of London from 2001, Burdett was appointed Chief Adviser to the UK Government on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics and its legacy which has contributed to the transformation of East London. As an adviser, he has brought this experience to other cities including Milan (for the 2015 Expo), Rome, Athens, Barcelona, Bogotá and Santiago del Chile.

Burdett was Director of the Venice International Architecture Biennale and Curator of the Global Cities Exhibition in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London, and chair of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture and Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize juries. Burdett was a Visiting Professor in Urban Planning and Design at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University and Global Distinguished Professor at New York University.

He is member of the 2024-2026 Nominating Committee of the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, adviser to NUS Cities at the National University of Singapore and Distinguished Fellow and Visiting Professor, Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities in Singapore. He is a member of the jury for the 2024 Architectural Review Public Awards and curating an exhibition on the city of Rome at the MAXXI Museum of 21st Art and Architecture in Rome.

Burdett was appointed a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for services to urban planning and design in the 2017 New Year’s Honours List and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal College of Art in 2019.