Marburg University to confer an Honorary Doctorate to Ron Boschma

RonThe director of CIRCLE, Ron Boschma, will receive an Honorary Doctorate from Marburg University (Germany) on July 4, 2013. He is receiving this award because of his exemplary contributions to the emerging field of Evolutionary Economic Geography.

Ron’s distinguished research work has focused on developing the field of Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) both theoretically and empirically. EEG depicts the evolution of the uneven distribution of economic activity across space as the outcome of largely contingent, path dependent processes. More in particular, it explains the spatial evolution of firms, industries, networks, cities and regions from elementary processes of entry, exit, growth and decline of firms. Taking a historical perspective, behaviour of agents or changes in spatial structures are conditioned, but not determined by structures on the micro level (like routines of organizations) and the macro level (institutions, networks, geographical structures), making economic evolution both a path- and place-dependent process at the same time.

Ron has been very active in applying the theoretical foundations of EEG empirically to many topics in economic geography. An actor-approach has often been applied, with an emphasis on firm dynamics (or more generally, organizational dynamics). Reasoning from the micro-level of the firm, evolutionary reasoning has been applied on the meso-level by (1) aggregating firms in sectors, focusing on the location, competition and industrial dynamics of entry and exit; (2) by aggregating firms in networks, focusing their interactive and collaborative relationships and the structure and evolution of spatial networks; and (3) by aggregating firms in regions, focusing on the role of geographical proximity in economic processes and the self-producing nature of clusters. Finally, the levels of industries, networks and regions can be aggregated at the macro-level of the spatial system, in which cities and regions converge or diverge depending on the evolution of their industrial structure and their positions in spatial networks.

News 0

Early Career Conference

Eu-SPRI Early Career Researcher Conference will take place at CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden, on 2-3 October 2013. The conference offers two days of plenaries, presentations and intense discussions between senior and junior scholars on the state-of-art of innovation studies especially focusing on the role of knowledge dynamics, institutions and innovation policies. Eligible participants are doctoral candidates in their second year and beyond and post-doctoral researchers having obtained their PhD within the last 2 years. However, the papers can be co-authored with senior scholars. Priority will be given to the applicants from Eu-SPRI Forum organizations. Deadline for call for papers has been extended to June 10, 2013. For more information, visit the CIRCLE Events page.

Uncategorized 0

Congratulations Mareile Walter!

Mareile at the nailingMareile Walter has successfully defended her dissertation to attain her PhD. This is her, with a hammer in hand, at the traditional ‘nailing’ ceremony at CIRCLE wherein the soon-to-be PhD literally nails her dissertation to a wooden wall as a symbolic public announcement of finishing the dissertation.

Uncategorized 0