The EGRG Annual General Meeting was held during the RGS-IBG Conference on 29 August 2019. Many thanks to all our outgoing committee members (Sarah Marie Hall, Al James, Nora Laneri, Emil Evenhuis, Karen Lai) for all their hard work. During the AGM, a number of new and previous committee members were elected into new/expanded roles.

EGRG committee (as of September 2019)

Chair: Jennifer Johns
Secretary: Chris Mullerleile
Treasurer: Julie MacLeavy
Prizes Officer: Steve Wood
Postgrad Reps: Dominic Obeng; Zara Babakordi
ECR Rep: Alexandra Dales; Harry Pettit
Events Officer: Jon Swords
Social Media and Web Officer: Karen Lai
International Officers: Lotte Thomsen (Copenhagen Business School); Heidi Østbø Haugen (Oslo)
Education Officer (HE): Andrew Greenhalgh-Cook
Education Officer (Schools and FE): Jennifer Ferreira
Ordinary member: Sarah Hall
Ordinary member:  Rhiannon Pugh (Diversity and Equality role)
Ordinary member:  Sarah Marie Hall (Diversity and Equality role)

More information on the EGRG committee members is available here.  Minutes of the 2019 AGM (and of past meetings) can also be found here. If you would like to get involved or have suggestions regarding events or initiatives, please do email us – we always welcome new help or ideas.

This year received another bumper crop of entries to the competition, and this is a continuing sign of vitality in Economic Geography in the UK. All entries were of a very high standard and the EGRG committee is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2019 Thesis Prize is:

Victoria Barker – Coventry University (now at Derby University): On the creative ecosystem: investigating ecosystem approaches through the creative sector (supervised by Professor Nick Henry and Dr David Jarvis). Many congratulations!

The EGRG Committee is delighted to announce that the winner of the best undergraduate dissertation for 2018.

We had 12 fantastic submissions, but the award goes to Simon Hardy of Queen Mary University of London for his dissertation entitled “Race to precarity: An investigation into the risk-laden mobilities performed by Deliveroo’s bicycle couriers”.

Congratulations to Simon for his excellent, timely, and engaging work!

We want to thank Sage Publishing for sponsoring this award and providing Simon with a copy of Global Shift, as well as a voucher for £150 in books.

The EGRG committee is pleased to announce our next meeting:

‘Economic Geography Futures’

Wednesday 21st November 2018, 10am – 5pm, University of Manchester (Sackville Building)

Aim: To enhance our current understanding of the state of UK economic geography, and to develop effective strategies and practical actions in response.

The day will focus on three areas of discussion: 1. The challenges and opportunities of practicing as an economic geographer and how we can reinvigorate and enhance UK economic geography; 2. Supporting postgraduate and early career economic geographers and 3. Research funding including the UK Research and Innovation’s Strength in Places fund.

We will be joined by Rachel Tyrrell from Research England (lead for the Strength in Places fund).  To be followed by social drinks and informal dinner in a nearby location.

To book your place please register via Eventbrite HERE

Places are capped so please register even if are eligible for a free ticket.  Any questions? Contact EGRG Chair Jennifer Johns at Jennifer.johns@bristol.ac.ukor EGRG Events Officer Emil Evenhuis at ee293@cam.ac.uk

Programme:

10.00: Welcome by Jennifer Johns (EGRG Chair)
10.00 – 10.45: Consolidation of ‘where we are’ and identification of priority areas.
10.45 – 11.15: Reputation and image of Economic Geography
Coffee break
11.45 – 12.30: Support for Postgraduates and Early Career Researchers in Economic Geography
Lunch
13.45 – 15.30: Discussion of funding opportunities, in particular the Strength in Places Fund (www.ukri.org/funding/funding-opportunities/strength-in-places-fund/)
Coffee break
16.00 – 17.00: Discussion and summary
After 17.00 you can join us for some drinks at The Refuge (in Manchester city centre).

At the EGRG AGM in July 2018 we welcomed several new committee members, and said goodbye to a number of colleagues who had come to the end of their 3 year terms.

Jennifer Johns (Bristol) takes over as Chair, replacing James Faulconbridge (Lancaster) – many thanks for his work over the last 3 years and good luck to Jenny!

Steve Wood (Surrey) takes over as EGRG prizes Officer; Sarah Hall (Nottingham) returned as an Ordinary Member; and Al James (Newcastle) agreed to do a third stint as Web Officer.

Many thanks to all our outgoing committee members for all their hard work, and a warm welcome to their successors.

More info on the EGRG committee is available here.  And if you would like to get involved then please just email us – we always welcome new help.

RGS mid-term conference, 18-20 April 2018, Royal Holloway, University of London

The EGRG was strongly present at the conference with presentations focussing on the UK and beyond. Economic Geography presentations based on research in the UK investigated the nation’s current economic climate from different angles by researching job polarisation, austerity, the gig-economy, and the digital. Presentations that presented research from more global perspectives included explorations of the Green Economy and Global Production Networks.

EGRG PGR Reps Nora Lanari and Dominic Obeng organised the EGRG sponsored reception, and report on its success in this full blog post here

The Economic Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG is very pleased to announce its 2017 Undergraduate Prize results. The winning dissertation is:

• Holly Campbell – student at UCL. ‘Moments of Progress: An exploration of the interaction between female enterprise and patriarchal norms in Selcuk, Turkey’

We received many high quality submissions, and the panel judging the submissions also highly commended the following dissertations:

• Amelia Heimler – student at Nottingham University. ‘The Paradox of managing Creativity: an evaluation of the competitive, spatial and managerial dimensions of co-working spaces in Central London’
• Buchan Richardson – student at Durham University. ‘Constructing Knowledges of “Emerging Markets” in a Post-Crisis World: How the Investment Management Industry is Re-Imagining China’

The EGRG would like to thank Sage for its sponsorship of the Undergraduate dissertation prize.

At the EGRG AGM in September 2017 we welcomed several new committee members, and said goodbye to a number of colleagues who had come to the end of their 3 year terms.

Chris Mullerleile (Swansea) takes over as Secretary, replacing Karenjit Clare (Cambridge).  Dominic Obeng (Leicester) and Nora Lanari (Coventry) take over as EGRG Postgrad Reps, replacing Amy Horton (QMUL, then UCL).

We also welcomed Alexandra Dales (Manchester) as our new EGRG Early Careers Officer.  Many thanks to all our outgoing committee members for all their hard work, and a warm welcome to their successors.

More info on the EGRG committee is available here.  And if you would like to get involved then please just email us – we always welcome new help.

EGRG Annual Symposium 2017 (Joint with Political Geography Research Group)

Brexit: A Geographical Conversation

• Date: Tuesday 29th August 2017
• Venue: Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR
• Jointly organised by RGS-IBG Research Groups: EGRG and PolGRG
• This workshop took place the day before the 2017 annual international conference of the RGS (with IBG).

Brexit is innately geographical, in its causes, reactions, and consequences. This event, organised jointly by the Economic Geography and Political Geography Research Groups of the Royal Geographical Society, provides an opportunity to further develop geographical conversations about Brexit, with a range of initial provocations being provided by speakers followed by extended Q&A and discussion periods. The event includes group debate, facilitated by five keynote talks.

More details on the programme and speakers can be found here

EGRG sponsors a full programme of economic geography sessions at the 2017 RGS/IBG Annual Conference in London.

Tuesday 29 to Friday 1 September 2017

Theme: Decolonising geographical knowledges: opening geography out to the world

EGRG-Sponsored sessions:

• Brexit: a geographical conversation
• Labour and life: changing geographies of the workplace (1)  (2)  (3)
• Advancing global production networks research: progress and prospects (1) lecture (2) panel: (3) general debates (4) conceptualizing strategic coupling (5) nature, resources, environment (6) labour dimensions
• Creating and Communicating Knowledge, Practices and Values: Exploring the Dynamics of Local Anchors and Trans-Local Communities (1) (2)
• Mortgage markets and the financialization of home in the Global South
• Financialisation in the Global South (1): Emerging Economies and Regions (2): Low-Income Economies and Regions
• Authors meet critics – Money and Finance after the Crisis: Critical Thinking for Uncertain Times (eds. Brett Christophers, Andrew Leyshon and Geoff Mann, Wiley, 2017)