Dr Darja Reuschke

The Department of Strategy and International Business
Associate Professor

Contact details

Email: d.reuschke@bham.ac.uk

Address: University House
Birmingham Business School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Darja Reuschke’s research concerns changes in local labour markets and new forms and locations of work and businesses that are emerging through new technologies, economic restructuring, crisis and social change. One focus of her research has been on self-employment and home-based work and how these forms of working are connected with social context, city regions, housing and neighbourhoods. Her recent research investigates changing homeworking patterns and preferences and how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted self-employment and people’s ability to work due to Long Covid.

Darja specialises in longitudinal data and secondary data analysis. She served as member of the ESRC Grant Assessment Panel for the Secondary Data Analysis Initiative 2018-2022.

Qualifications

Doctoral study at the Faculty of Spatial Planning at the TU Dortmund, 2009
First degree in Geography with Sociology and Political Sciences, Humboldt University Berlin, 2002
Fellow of Advanced HE, 2020

Biography

Darja Reuschke graduated from the Humboldt University in 2002 with a degree in Geography. Before she started my doctoral studies at the TU Dortmund in 2004/05, she worked in the European Social Fund Division in the Ministry of Social Affairs, Employment and Youth, Bremen (Germany) on the evaluation and monitoring of employment programmes. From 2004-2010 Darja worked as PhD student and teaching fellow at the Faculty of Spatial Planning at the TU Dortmund.

She received the Best PhD Award from the TU Dortmund in 2009. With a Marie Curie Intra-European Individual Fellowship she went to the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews in 2011. In 2012, Darja received a permanent lectureship in Geography at the University of St Andrews, affiliated with the Centre of Housing Research. Before joining the University of Birmingham in 2023, She was Associate Professor in Geography at the University of Southampton 2016-2023.

Teaching

She has been teaching at universities in Germany and the UK since 2004/05. Her teaching expertise includes research methods, statistics, economic geography and urban geography. Between 2016-2023, she was a tutor for small groups of students with the focus on broader study skills and pastoral care.

Research

Economic Geography, local labour markets; social, spatial and digital aspects of work and employment

Self-employment, entrepreneurship and microbusinesses; context of becoming self-employed and doing business

Urban Studies, neighbourhoods, residential and workplace choices, spatial mobility and commuting

Completed projects:

‘Addressing inclusivity in the spatial and social impacts of COVID-19 on the self-employed in the UK‘, 2020-2022, funded through the Covid-19 Rapid Response Grant Scheme of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)/Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), (ES/V008781/1)

ERC Starting Grant (ERC-StG-2014 639403) ‘Home-based self-employment and businesses and the reshaping of society and space’ (WORKANDHOME), funded by the European Commission

‘Pathways to Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Business Creation in Europe’, funded by the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) at the University of Southampton , 2017-2018

Seminar Series ‘Reconceptualising urban landscapes of work’, funded by the Urban Studies Foundation, 2016-2018,

‘Digital Workplace for Innovation and Participation (DigiWIP)’, funded by a Stimulus Grant of the University of Southampton Web Science Institute, 2016-2017

Seminar Series: ‘Entrepreneurship in Homes and Neighbourhoods’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 2013-2016, ES/L001489/1

Home-based businesses in Scotland’, with Professor Colin Mason (University of Glasgow), funded by the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland,

Housing equity, mortgage crisis and entrepreneurship’, Early Career Grant of the Regional Studies Association, 2012-2013

‘Impact analysis of Housing Associations’ employment and skills work’, funded by the National Housing Federation, Centre for Housing Research, 2012-2013

Other activities

2023 – Member of the UKRI Policy Fellowship assessment panel

Since 2023 - Editorial reviewer board, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship

2018-2022 - Member of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Grant Assessment Panel, Panel D (Secondary Data Analysis Initiative)

2021 - Member of the Grant Assessment Panel of the Latvian Council of Science

Publications

Long, J., Lee, J. and Reuschke, D. (2023) Activity graphs: Spatial graphs as a framework for quantifying individual mobility. Journal of Geographical Systems https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-023-00405-0

Reuschke, D. and Houston, D. (2022) The impact of Long COVID on the UK workforce. Applied Economics Letters, https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2022.2098239

Reuschke D. and Zhang, M. (2022) Precarious self-employment in urban Europe. European Urban and Regional Studies 29(4), 440-459 https://doi.org/10.1177/09697764221095756

Reuschke D. and Mason C. (2022) The engagement of home-based businesses in the digital economy. Futures 135, 102542: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102542

Reuschke D. and Houston D. (2022) The intra-urban residential and workplace locations of small business owners. Journal of Urban Affairs 44(7), 926-948

Clifton, N. and Reuschke, D. (2022) The diverse coworking landscape and implications for commercial real estate provision: lessons from individual preferences and practice. Journal of Property Investment & Finance 40(5), 508-523.

Felstead, A. and Reuschke, D. (2021) A flash in the pan or a permanent change? The growth of homeworking during the pandemic and its effect on employee productivity in the UK. Information Technology & People ahead-of-print: https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-11-2020-0758

Reuschke D., Clifton N. and Fisher M. (2021) Coworking in homes – Mitigating the tensions of the freelance economy. Geoforum 119, 122-132

Burchell B., Reuschke D. and Zhang M. (2021) Spatial and temporal segmenting of urban workplaces: The gendering of multi-locational working. Urban Studies 58(11), 2207-2232.

Reuschke D., Long J. and Bennett N. (2021) Locating Creativity in the City using Twitter Data. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 48(9), 2607-2622

Long J. and Reuschke D. (2021) Daily mobility patterns of small business owners and homeworkers in post- industrial cities. Computers, Environment & Urban Systems 85 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2020.101564

Reuschke D. and Felstead A. (2020) Changing Workplace Geographies in the COVID-19 crisis. Dialogues in Human Geography 10(2), 208-212.

Reuschke D. and Houston, D. (2020) Revisiting the gender gap in commuting through self-employment. Journal of Transport Geography 85, 102712: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102712

Reuschke D. (2019): The subjective well-being of homeworkers across life domains. Environment and Planning A 51(6), 1326-1349.

Houston D and Reuschke D. (2017) City economies and microbusiness growth. Urban Studies 54(14), 3199-3217.

Reuschke D. (2016) The Importance of Housing for Self-Employment. Economic Geography 92(4), 378-400.

Reuschke D. and Houston D. (2016): The Importance of Housing and Neighbourhood Resources for Urban Micro-businesses. European Planning Studies 24(6), 1216-1235.

Reuschke D. (2015): Self-employment as a route into and out of Britain’s South East. Regional Studies, 49, 665-680.

Reuschke D. and Maclennan D. (2014) Housing Assets and Small Business Investment: Exploring Links for Theory and Policy. Regional Studies 48:4, 744-757.

Reuschke D. (2014): Self-employment, internal migration and place embeddedness. Population, Space and Place 20(3): 235-249.

Reuschke D. and van Ham M. (2013): Testing the ‘residential rootedness’–hypothesis of self-employment for Germany and the UK. Environment and Planning A 45, 1219-1239.

Van Ham, M., Reuschke, D., Kleinhans, R., Mason, C., Syrett, S. (eds.) (2017): Entrepreneurial Neighbourhoods – Towards an Understanding of the economies of neighbourhoods and communities. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham [317 pp.]

Mason, C., Reuschke, D., Syrett, S., Van Ham, M. (eds.) (2015): Entrepreneurship and Cities: neighbourhoods, households and homes. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham [288 pp.]

Reuschke D., Salzbrunn, M., Schönhärl, K. (eds.) (2013): The Economies of Urban Diversity in the Ruhr Area and Istanbul. Palgrave Macmillan: New York [265 pp.]

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