Research
Francisco's areas of expertise are: human mobility and migration; climate sustainability; and geographic data science. He is featured in the Experts Database of the United Nations Network on Migration and two of his projects on Big Data, machine learning and migration are listed in the Data Innovation Directory of the International Organization for Migration. He contributes to the UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics (UN-CEBD) as a Co-Vice Chair of the Mobile Phone Data Task Team (MPD-TT) and leads the Migration Sub-group. Francisco is a Co-Investigator of the Smart Data Research UK Data Service for Imagery - Imago, and is the Deputy Director of the Social Health Hub which is part of the UK Mental Health Programme. Francisco is also the Chair of Quantitative Methods Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society and Secretary of the Steering Committee of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Population Geography. He has been invited to present his research at the United Nations Population & Development Division in New York and works closely with the Global Migration Data Analysis Centre within International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the UK2070 Commission, UK’s government organisations, including the Ordnance Survey and the ONS Data Campus, and commercial companies, Geolytix. His work contributed to the United Nations Expert group meeting on `sustainable cities, human mobility and international migration', and the ONS Government Statistical Service Advisory Committee. Francisco has published over 100 scientific articles and was editor of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A (2021-present). Currently, he is the current managing editor of REGION (2022-present), the journal of the European Regional Science Association (2018-present) and serves as a member of the Editorial Board of Population, Space and Place, Spatial Economic Analysis, and Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy. The international reach of Francisco's research has been recognised by an award for the best paper published in the journal of Geographical Systems (2021) and in Spatial Economic Analysis (2018) and having top articles in the top 10 most read articles in Spatial Economic Analysis (2017-present), Transportation Research Part C (2018-2019) & Population Studies (2018-present).
Human mobility and migration
Climate sustainability
Geographic data science
Research groups
Research grants
Building recovery and resilience in severe mental illness: Leveraging the role of social determinants in illness trajectories and interventions
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
April 2024 - March 2029
DEveloping a framework to measure and correct BIASes in human mobility data extracted from digital footprints (DEBIAS )
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
August 2024 - August 2026
Policy Support Fund 2024/25 (previously PPQR)
RESEARCH ENGLAND (UK)
August 2024 - July 2025
SatVu (Collaboration with UBDC/Glasgow)
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
September 2024 - February 2029
Supporting Post Pandemic Recovery and Resilience through New Forms of Data
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
February 2022 - July 2023
Functional spaces and mobility
THE ALAN TURING INSTITUTE (UK) (CHARITABLE)
August 2021 - March 2022
Understanding the declining trend in internal migration in Europe
REGIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION (UK)
December 2016 - May 2018
Research collaborations
Marzia Rango
International Organization for Migration, United Nations
Using large scale social media data to measure perceptions towards immigrants
Jorge Rodríguez-Vignoli
The Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE)
Measuring and understanding the impacts of internal migration on cities, towns and local communities in Latin American countries
Stefano Cavazzi
Ordnance Survey
Spatio-temporal analyses of neighbourhoods - this work was part of a PhD and was featured by the Geospatial Commission: https://geospatialcommission.blog.gov.uk/2022/07/19/spatio-temporal-analyses-of-neighbourhoods/