Professor Rob Hope
Professor of Water Policy
Director, Water Security Initiative, School of Geography and the Environment
Director of the Water Programme, Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment
Member of the Oxford Water Network
Member of the Environment Research Doctoral Training Partnership
Professor of Water Policy
Director, Water Security Initiative, School of Geography and the Environment
Director of the Water Programme, Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment
Member of the Oxford Water Network
Member of the Environment Research Doctoral Training Partnership
Academic Profile
Professor Rob Hope is Director of the Water Security Initiative at the School of Geography and the Environment and Director of the Water Programme at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. His research interests focus on water policy, poverty and economics, largely in Africa and Asia.
Rob is Director of the REACH programme, which is a £22m UK FCDO programme to improve water security for 10 million poor people between 2015-2024. His wider research has been funded by UKRI (ESRC, NERC), UNICEF, USAID, GIZ/BMZ and OECD.
In 2018, he was part of a research team with Engineering Science which won the inaugural University of Oxford's Vice Chancellor's Innovation Award. Between 2018 and 2022, he has served as an expert member of the ESRC International Development Expert Group for the GBP1 billion Global Challenges Research Programme, and between 2019-2021 as member of the UNICEF/WHO/World Bank global working group for Measuring and Monitoring Drinking Water Affordability for SDG6.
Rob has served as both the Academic Director and the Course Director for the MSc Water Science, Policy and Management (WSPM). He teaches and supervises students on WSPM and the MSc on Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment, and supervises a cohort of DPhil/PhD students.
Since 2016, Rob has been a Trustee of Water Services Maintenance Trust Fund in Kenya and, since 2020, a Trustee of the Uptime Catalyst Facility which has disbursed USD1 million for professional service providers providing reliable drinking water for 1.5 million people in 7 African countries.
Current Research
- REACH - Improving Water Security for the Poor (FCDO, 2015-2024)
- NEWAVE - Water Governance (EU, 2019-2024)
Teaching and Supervision
Graduate Research Students
| Medha Mukherjee (OICSD/Somerville) |
Intersectional Inequalities and Drinking Water Choices in India | 2022-present |
| Kristina Nilsson (Bank of America/ Uptime Global) |
Public finance and drinking water services in rural Africa and Asia | 2022-present |
| Sandra Serumaga-Zake | Water Infrastructure Finance in sub-Saharan Africa (co-supervisor Dr Alex Money) |
2021- present |
| Johannes Wagner (EU NEWAVE) |
Rural Water Finance in Africa (co-supervisor Dr Johanna Koehler) |
2020- present |
| Andrew Armstrong | Revenue patterns of piped water services in rural Africa (co-supervisor Dr Johanna Koehler) |
2019-2022 (completed) |
| Rebecca Peters (Marshall & REACH) |
Normalized non-compliance - regulation of river pollution in Dhaka, Bangladesh | 2017-2022 (completed) |
| Ranu Sinha (OICSD, Somerville) |
Irrigation infrastructure, institutions and poverty in India (co-supervisor - Prof Simon Dadson) |
2015-2020 (completed) |
| Heloise Greeff (UNICEF) |
Condition monitoring methods to predict handpump failure in rural Africa (lead supervisor - Prof David Clifton) |
2015-2020 (completed) |
| Alex Fischer (REACH) |
Building water secure institutions in rural Bangladesh | 2015-2019 (completed) |
| Jacob Katuva (BASE/Oxford) |
Water and Welfare in Coastal Kenya | 2014-2020 (completed) |
| Johanna Koehler (Clarendon) |
Water Risks and Institutional Change in Kenya | 2014-2018 (completed) |
| Tim Foster (ESRC) |
From cash flows to water flows - new models for rural water sustainability in Africa | 2012-2016 (completed) |
| Alex Money | Corporate water risk and return (co-supervisor, Prof Gordon Clark) |
2010-2014 (completed) |
| Aaron Krolikowski (Clarendon) |
Wireless Water - impacts and implications of mobile water payment innovations in Dar Es Salaam | 2011-14 (completed) |
| Alvar Closas | Burning water: institutions, technology, statecraft and the production of water scarcity Spain | 2009-13 (completed) |
| Alexandra Girard (Hay) |
Women, Water and Work in Rural India | 2009-14 (completed) |
| Caroline King (NERC) |
Oasis ecosystems, global change and human development in north Africa (co-supervisor, Prof D. Thomas, SoGE) |
2008-12 (completed) |
Selected Publications
