Himanshu Parikh has done pioneering work on infrastructure development of low-income settlements in India. He also teaches occasionally at CEPT University, Ahmedabad and Cambridge University. He had been in the Planning Commission Urban Poverty Group and on the Governing Council of Department of Science and Technology, India. He received United Nations World Habitat Award in 1993, Aga Khan Award in 1998 and a Government of India Citation the same year. In 2005 he was invited as a Fellow to Royal Society of Arts.