Jamie Scott Baxter

Jamie Scott Baxter joined the IRS in October 2017 as a doctoral candidate in the department of  “Dynamics of Communication, Knowledge and Spatial Development”. Baxter is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow and part of the project "Social Entrepreneurship in Structurally Weak Rural Regions – Analysing Innovative Troubleshooters in Action" (RurAction). 

Baxter is a registered architect in the U.K and as a practitioner his work - which has led to a number of regional and national awards - has focused on urban, and more recently, rural spatial development projects in structurally weak regions in England. Alongside practice, Jamie has taught as a senior lecturer in London architecture schools where he developed a teaching and learning program integrating practice, research and participatory design with communities and students addressing localised, socio-spatial challenges and opportunities.   

His research interests include, participatory design in spatial development, social innovation in rural regions and mapping tools and methodologies as a means of recording space and problem solving. Jamie’s PhD thesis considers how social innovation spreads through 3 case study regions in Europe, including: Uckermark (Germany);  Mühlviertel (Austria); and Alentejo (Portugal), and asks, which tools social entrepreneurs have to accelerate and extend the spatial reach of social innovations within these regions, and internationally.  

Baxter graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, Macintosh School of Architecture with a Bachelors degree in Architecture  (RIBA part I), and went on to receive a Professional Diploma in Architecture (RIBA II) and Professional Practice in Architecture (Part III) from London Metropolitan University, Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design. He co-founded and sat on the board of a local civil society organisation which went on to become a registered charity and shortlisted for the Small Charity of the Year Award in 2010. The organisation’s mission was to rejuvenate, maintain and upgrade a declining community space in an inner city east London neighbourhood.  The space since won a number of local and national awards for its landscape design, urban design and community participation.