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Dr Hannah Grove

Fellow, Junior Research Fellow, Staff

Researcher, GCHU

Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation, Kellogg College

PhD (Maynooth University)

Hannah is an urban planner and health geographer whose research focuses on how urban environments can be designed and shaped to support health, wellbeing and equity across the lifecourse. She is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Global Centre on Healthcare & Urbanisation (GCHU). Her work sits at the intersection of urban planning, public health and human geography, with a particular interest in healthy and sustainable urbanism, ageing, and the relationship between place and lived experience.

At the GCHU, she leads research on age-friendly cities and communities, examining how urban environments can better support ageing well in place. She also contributes to interdisciplinary projects shaping more inclusive, sustainable and liveable cities. Her work is explicitly policy-engaged, bridging academic insight and real-world decision-making.

She has extensive experience in applied research and teaching, and uses a combination of qualitative, geospatial and community-based participatory methods to understand how people experience place and to address socio-spatial inequalities. Working closely with policymakers, practitioners and community partners, she generates actionable evidence to inform planning at local, national and international levels.

Prior to joining the GCHU, Hannah worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher and Assistant Professor at Dublin City University, as a Research Assistant at Queen’s University Belfast, and as a Planning Policy Officer at Adur & Worthing Council. She completed her PhD in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University, exploring how older people define and enact ageing well in place within the Greater Dublin Area. This experience underpins her commitment to translational research that connects academic knowledge with policy and practice.

Selected Projects

Enhancing Environments for Older Adult Social Connectedness (ENOLA)

Funded by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and delivered in collaboration with Re-engage, this project, led by Hannah, explores how planning policy can better support social connectedness among older people, generating evidence-based recommendations for policy and practice.

Laying the Groundwork for an Age-Friendly Oxford: Mapping Needs, Generating Evidence and Building Partnerships

Funded by the Vivensa Foundation, this project brings together researchers, local government, community organisations and older residents to co-design an evidence base for a future Age-Friendly Oxford strategy, focusing on local needs, lived experience and partnership-building.

Envisioning Neighbourhoods and Co-Creating Thriving Communities in the Fifteen-Minute City (ENACT 15mC)

Hannah is a Co-Investigator on this UKRI-funded project, part of the EU Driving Urban Transitions programme, working with partners across four European Urban Living Labs to explore how digital tools can support the co-creation of sustainable and inclusive neighbourhoods.

Assessing the Value and Impact of Sound Resource’s ‘Moving Music’ Concerts

Funded by Science Together, this project worked with the charity Sound Resource to evaluate the social value and accessibility of inclusive music events for people with dementia and their carers, using spatial analysis, storytelling methods and social return on investment (SROI) to inform future service provision and funding decisions.

Listening Exchanges: A Community Engagement Method to Address Polarisation

Funded by the Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN), this pilot project explored the use of ‘Listening Exchanges’ as a method for engaging communities and addressing tensions around local sustainability initiatives.

Recent Publications

Grove, H. (2026) The Importance of Everyday Walking Routines for Ageing Well in Place, In: Snellgrove, M. (ed.) Leisured Walking: Mobilities, Encounters and Critical Engagements. Routledge. Chapter 10. DOI: 10.4324/9781003588375-13.

Grove, H. (2026) Ageing Well in Place: A Capability Approach. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie (Journal of Economic and Human Geography), 117(1), 10-26. DOI: 10.1111/tesg.70013.

Howard, D. & Grove, H. (2025) Mapping Health: Auditing Healthy New Towns in the UK, In: Karunaratne, G. (ed.) Mapping: Narratives, Practices and Spatial Inquiry. Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design. Chapter 10. DOI: 10.4324/9781003565819-14.

Carpenter, J., Chisholm, A., Grove, H. & Krisch, A. (2025) Listening Exchanges: A Pilot Project. Final Report. Available at: https://www.gchu.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Listening-Exhanges-Report-RGB.pdf (Accessed 30th April 2026).

Manzo, L. & Grove, H. (2024) Inadequate Social Housing and Health: The case of Oliver Bond House in inner-city Dublin. Open Research Europe, 3:211, 1-25. DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.16767.2.

Grove, H. (2021) Ageing as well as you can in place: applying a geographical lens to the Capability Approach. Social Science & Medicine, 113525, 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113525.

Drilling, M., Grove, H., Ioannou, B. & Moulaert, T. (2021) Towards a Structural Embeddedness of Space in the Framework of the Social Exclusion of Older People, In: Walsh, K., Scharf, T., Van Regenmortel, S. & Wanka, A. (eds.) Social Exclusion in Later Life: Interdisciplinary and Policy Perspectives. Springer. Chapter 15. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-51406-8_15.

Foley, R., Bell, S. L., Gittens, H., Grove, H., Kaley, A., McLauchlan, A., Osbourne, T. & Power, A. (2020) ‘Disciplined research in undisciplined settings’: Critical Explorations of In‐Situ and Mobile Methodologies in Geographies of Health and Wellbeing. Area, 00, 1-9. DOI: 10.1111/area.12604.