SEED Professor Cecilia Wong awarded prestigious RTPI Gold Medal

22 Jan 2026

The Royal Town Planning Institute has awarded its Gold Medal for exceptional achievement in the field of town and country planning to Cecilia Wong, who is a Professor of Spatial Planning in our Planning, Property and Environmental Management Department.

During the General Assembly of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) earlier this week, it was announced that Professor Cecilia Wong has been awarded the institution's prestigious Gold Medal. Unlike other annual awards, the RTPI's Gold Medal is awarded at the discretion of the Board of Trustees for exceptional achievement in the field of town and country planning taking into account the National/International prominence. Cecilia becomes only the 17th recipient of the Gold Medal since 1953 and the first recipient since 2019.

Cecilia is a Professor of Spatial Planning in our Planning, Property and Environmental Management Department within SEED and Director of the Spatial Policy & Analysis Lab, Manchester Urban Institute. Her research expertise includes strategic planning, spatial policy monitoring and analysis, urban and regional development, and housing and infrastructure planning. She has been working on a number of collaborative grants recently, including a five-year consortium project on ‘Tackling root causes upstream of unhealthy urban development’ funded by the UK Prevention Research Partnership and a three-year project on ‘Eco-Urbanisation: Promoting Sustainable Development in Metropolitan Regions of China’ funded by the ESRC-NSFC Newton Fund Collaborative Research. She received the University’s Distinguished Achievement Award ‘Researcher of the Year (Humanities)’ in 2021.

Previous Gold Medal recipients with a connection to Manchester include Dame Alison Nimmo (2013) who graduated from our University with a BA Town Planning in 1985 and worked on the masterplan to rebuild Manchester City Centre after the IRA bomb before becoming CEO of the Crown Estate; and Professor Michael Batty who is Emeritus Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London where he is Chair of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis - Professor Batty graduated from Manchester with a First Class degree in Town and Country Planning in 1966.