Alistair Cole is Professor of Political Sciences and Head of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. He obtained his DPhil from Oxford Univeristy (1986).  He has had  a distinguished international career, occupying the post of Full Professor at Universities in the UK, France and Hong Kong. He is best known for his expertise on French politics; his arrival in Hong Kong in 2019 built upon the renowned reputation of HKBU in European Studies. He has also worked extensively on issues of territorial and metropolitan governance. He is an accomplised researcher, with a H.index of 33, according to Google Scholar (8/07/2022). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and has been a  member of commissioning panels of various Research Councils (ESRC, ANR, FNRS). He was Vice-Chair of the ESRC's Panel B (social sciences) from 2010-2014.

Comparative Politics, Territorial Governance (including Smart City), Trust and Transparency, European Politics, Public Policy.