Clapson graduated from Lancaster University with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1982, and then received a Master of Arts (MA) degree in modern social history from the University the following year.
In 1989, he was awarded a doctorate (PhD) from the University of Warwick, having successfully defended his thesis on gambling in England between 1823 and 1961.
[1] Clapson has also served on the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College, the Steering Committee of History UK and the Editorial Boards of Planning Perspectives, the University of Westminster Press and the Journal of Administrative Sciences.
[1] According to a Research Excellence Framework case study, he "has challenged a powerful anti-suburban prejudice in popular and elite cultures in Britain, and sought to confront negative perceptions of the British new towns.
"[2] Clapson has focused on the intersection between planning policy and social change in an international context, arguing that Milton Keynes "was at the crossroads of an Anglo-American intellectual culture of town planning".