Luis Santos y Ganges (Zamora 1962) is associate professor on the area of Urban and Territorial Management in the School of Architecture at University of Valladolid. He is the current director of the IUU, Urban Planning Institute of the University of Valladolid, as well as of the Ciudades journal.

He took a degree on Geography at the University of Valladolid in 1988, railroad worker between 1979 and 2000, and professional geographer between 1991 and 2003, as territorial analyst and expert on inland transport, university specialist on landscape planning and diploma on urban planning. He has a Doctorate by the University of Valladolid since 2002, with a thesis on railways on the city. He teaches at the University of Valladolid; associated part-time lecturer between 1999 and 2003, PhD assistant professor between 2004 and 2008, and since then PhD full professor.

He specializes on the railway-city interrelations and the recent experiences on territorial management. Precisely following a clear connection with these topics, two are the research profiles where most of his publications and works can be found: on the one hand, inland transport –especially railways– and its connection to the city and the territory, and on the other hand the actual scope, the landscape perspective and the innovative technical approaches to special planning.

He has performed many diverse contributions to the railway world from the fields of urbanism and geography, perhaps being of the most note his books Urbanismo y ferrocarril, La construcción del espacio ferroviario en las ciudades medias españolas (2007) and Burgos y el ferrocarril. Estudio de geografía urbana (2005).

As concerns his research work on the topic of territorial management, he has been a part of the drafting team of the Guidelines of Valladolid and Surroundings (2001) and the Guidelines of Segovia and Surroundings (2005), has directed the Guidelines on the Palencia province (2009) and has participated on other instruments such as the complementary Guidelines of Territorial Management of Castilla y León. He has directed as well urban plans and other innovative instruments of special planning, such as the Adjustment and Improvement Plan of the Cultural Area for the archeological zone in Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, as well as the Management Plan of Natural Resources of the Natural Area of Covalagua and Las Tuerces, Palencia and Burgos.

Lately he is investigating the wide field of history and cultural heritage. PhD. by the University of Burgos in 2015 with a thesis on History, he increases his scope of interest from heritage considerations on urbanism to the specificity of industrial heritage.