Woodward was a part of the university's cartography department until he retired from teaching in August 2002 to dedicate more of his time to research, editing, and outreach.
[1] During a 1977 walk through the countryside in Exeter, England, Woodward and J. Brian Harley, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, developed the idea for what became the History of Cartography Project.
They envisioned an ambitious multi-volume reference work that would examine the social production and consumption of maps across cultures from prehistoric origins to the 20th century.
[2] Malcolm Lewis stated that Woodward "transformed the history of cartography from a directionless Eurocentric field into a respectable subject now global in scope."
He was a prolific and well-regarded scholar; his individual research and editorial works were widely disseminated and highly acclaimed.