December 11th 2012, Routledge Major Works published “Global Cities” (Hardback). The collection looks at the growing influence of cities, providing an authorative reference resource on the vast body of literature spanning this area of Urban Studies. The collection has been put together by a number of leading scholars in the field (P. Taylor, J. Beaverstock, B. Derudder, J. Faulconbridge, J. Harrison, M. Hoyler, K. Pain, F. Witlox). It is an essential resource and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital non-stop research tool.

» Read more

"In de ban van de Ring" by Kobe Boussauw and Georges Allaert

» Read the article (in Dutch)

NCGE (NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR GEOGRAPHIC EDUCATION) Best College/University Article 2012 awarded to Ben Derudder for the article "The Regionalization of Africa: Delineating Africa's Subregions Using Airline Data".

» Read the official announcement for Ben's price

A "Geography Directions" blog post entitled '"Goldman Sachs rules the world", Islam-style?' by David Bassens

» Click here to read the article.

Jonas De Vos was awarded the Transport & Mobility Leuven Thesis Prize 2011.

» Click here to see the certificate in detail.

Sara Verlinde was presented the Outstanding Paper Award by the Institue for City Logistics during the 7th International Conference on City Logistics (7-9 June 2011, Mallorca, Spain for the article "How to consolidate urban flows of goods without setting up an urban consolidation centre?" (Auteurs: Sara Verlinde, Cathy Macharis & Frank Witlox).

» Click here to see the certificate in detail.

From left to right: Dr. Eric Cornelis (FUNDP), Prof. em. Alain Bonnafous (Université Lumière-Lyon2), Prof. Frank Witlox (UGent, BIVEC president), Prof. Philippe Toint (FUNDP) (click on the photo to enlarge)

» Click here for more information about the Transport Research Day.

On the 20th of May, the shared second prize by PlanDag 2011 (Stichting Planologische Discussiedagen) was awarded to the paper "Suburb en mobiliteit: Zijn alle 'stedelijke gebieden' even stedelijk?" by Kobe Boussauw and Frank Witlox.

» Click here for a copy of the paper (in Dutch).

» Click here to see the certificate in detail.

Studiedag 'Sociale Staat van Vlaanderen 2011' at the Flemish Parliament, Brussels.

» Click here to download the flyer (in Dutch).

Article in 'De Tijd' (1 April 2011) with comments by Sara Verlinde (SEG).

» Click here to download the article (in Dutch).

Click here for the full size group photo.

'Shanghai Expo 2010': SEG is one of six UGent research groups presenting research during the 'Oost-Vlaamse (East-Flanders) Week' (27/8). Title of the presentation: 'The global capacity of cities: the changing position of megacities in transnational networks'

Video recordings of the 'Elfde Oost-Vlaams Economisch Forum' with Frank Witlox as guest speaker.

Kobe Boussauw was awarded with a bronze medal at the TRA 2010 conference in Brussels within the pillar "Societal importance of transport" for his paper "Spatial variations in destination proximity: a regional case study". The nomination was done by the Young European Arena of Research (YEAR 2010), while the prize was awarded after a poster presentation by the candidate. The awarded paper is a regional case study for Flanders showing that existing variations in spatial proximity are still to a large extent determinant for the volume of kilometres travelled. More information can be found on here.

AAG Session 'Geographies of Web Information' (Lomme Devriendt and Frank Witlox, with Andrew Boulton and Stanley Brunn from University of Kentucky).

More info about the AAG: http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/2010/index.htm.

'Benchmarking Dublin' on 25/1: workshop led by Peter Taylor, Michael Hoyler (both from Loughborough University) and Ben Derudder (UGent), aimed at comparing Dublin's position in the world city network with other (European) cities.

Veronique Van Acker, Patricia L. Mokhtarian, Frank Witlox, IATBR, Jaipur, India.

More info on http://iatbr2009.asu.edu/ocs/index.php/iatbr/2009/index.

UPDATE Click here to download all available presentations in one archive (zip).

Click here to visit the 'Vervoerslogistieke werkdagen (VLW)' website.

UPDATE Sara Verlinde received the best paper award for the paper "Night-time delivery as a potential option in Belgian urban distribution: a stakeholder approach" (S. Verlinde, W. Debauche, C. Macharis, A. Heemeryck, E. Van Hoeck & F. Witlox).

Seg participates at the Urban Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG Annual Conference "Global Cities Now? Current Perspectives in Global Urban Studies", Swansea, 5-6 November 2009 (Ben Derudder, Frank Witlox, Anneleen De Vos, Lomme Devriendt, Heidi Hanssens, Stephanie Vervaet, David Bassens).

More info on http://www.urban-geography.org.uk.

UPDATE Lomme Devriendt's "City Networks in Cyberspace and Time: Using Google Hyperlinks to measure Economic and Environmental Crises" received the UGRG prize for best poster.

Click here to read the interview (in Dutch).
Click here to read the article (in Dutch).

Transport & Logistics 2009 (Antwerp).

Veronique Van Acker, GRT Seminar, Transportation Research Group, FUNDP, Namen.

More info on http://www.grt.be.

Op uitnodiging. Veronique Van Acker. 21ste Belgische Wegencongres (Gent,ICC).

Op uitnodiging. ITS World Congress & Saab AB (Stockholm, Rica Hotel).

Met Sven Vlassenroot, Karel Brookhuis en Vincent Marchau. 16th ITS World Congress 2009 (Stockholm).

Op uitnodiging. Isabella Brantkring (Antwerpen)

12 mei in het Vlaams Parlement, van 9u tot 17u.

Klik hier voor meer info.

The SEG is participating in a special session on "World Cities and Global Production Networks" at the AAG Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, March 22-27, 2009. The purpose of this special session is to think about how the literature about Global Production Networks and World City Networks may be integrated in order to provide a starting point for understanding the process behind contemporary globalization.

Please visit the AAG website for more information.

The SEG organizes together with M. Wilson (Michigan State University) and R. Hanley (New York City Technical College) a special session on "New Approaches for Measuring the Geography of Internet Traffic" at the AAG Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, March 22-27, 2009. The purpose of this special session is to think about how new approaches (e.g. VoIP traffic, geo-coding of IP-addresses, exchange points traffic, generated traffic at/between places in cyberspace) may provide us with alternatives for bandwidth volume as a measure for revealing the geography of Internet traffic, including alternative conceptual approaches for studying urban digital accessibility.

Global City is the only international forum where public and private leaders exchange best practices and share sustainable urban strategies. This unique networking platform, dedicated to mayors, urban planners, decision-makers and leaders, will be held in Abu Dhabi in January 2009 - for the first time in the Middle East. Please visit their website.

As researchers in the field of world cities, the SEG (Ben Derudder, Frank Witlox, and David Bassens) will attend to this event in January 2009, presenting earlier world city research as well as recent work on the importance of Islamic financial services within the MENA region.

Het Bestuurscollege van de UGent heeft vandaag beslist aan wie de UGent in 2008 een eredoctoraat zal uitreiken. De Universiteit Gent reikt haar eredoctoraten uit op 21 maart 2008, de Dies Natalis van de UGent.

Het eredoctoraat van de faculteit Wetenschappen gaat naar Prof. Peter J. Taylor (Verenigd Koninkrijk) - Loughbourough University en Virgina Tech (Metropolitan Institute). Professor Peter Taylor is zondermeer één van de meest gezaghebbende onderzoekers in de geografie. Als stichtend hoofdredacteur van één van de belangrijkste tijdschriften in de geografie (Political Geography) en één van de meest geciteerde geografen heeft Peter Taylor in de afgelopen decennia een onmiskenbare stempel gedrukt op de aardrijkskunde.

Meer info bij de persverantwoordelijke UGent:
Isabel Paeme (09 264 30 66, Isabel.Paeme@UGent.be)

» Bekijk de foto's (UGent beeldarchief)

On 24 and 25 January 2008, SEG hosts a colloquium on "business travel in the global economy". The overall rationale behind the colloquium starts from the observation that mobility is now a primary discourse in globalization debates. This takes many forms but, in economic terms, business travel now appears to be the fundamental production process in constructing and reproducing the Network Society and the global, knowledge-based economy. The formative aim of this workshop is therefore to explore some of the contemporary debates associated with such mobility, the airline industry, business travel and forms of corporate mobility more widely. It will draw together a collection of presentations that offer both empirical examination of the role, geographies and spaces of business travel, but also critical theoretical interventions into existing debates. Through the workshop we seek to advance understanding of: (a) the new socio-economic topologies of business space produced by business travel and the way these underlie relational production networks; (b) the places and spaces of "meetingness" that have emerged and facilitate this; and (c) the geographical, sociological and economic influences on and outcomes of practices of business travel.

by Professor PIET SAEY, Professor-Emeritus in Social Geography and Planning at Ghent University (Belgium), and member of the Globalisation and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC).

MONDAY 14 JANUARY 2008
Hosted by the Department of Geography, Loughborough University (UK)
Loughborough University
Stuart Mason Building (SMB)
Loughborough
Leicestershire
LE11 3TU
United Kingdom

In conjunction with the 10th GaWC Annual Lecture by Prof. Dr. Piet Saey (Ghent University, Belgium) the Globalisation and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) organises its second student workshop, this year focusing on Globalisation, World Cities and History.

Recently, GaWC has extended its interests beyond contemporary globalisation, and started to investigate the external relations of cities in the past. Transnational city networks are not limited to our present-day society, but cities and towns have been connected with each other since their early origins. Related to this, one can ask whether or not globalisation and/or the "network society" are really as new as often conceived in the scientific literature. Since globalisation is often interpreted as a strengthening of the role of cities at the expense of states, attention is paid as well to the complex relation between cities and states throughout historical times.

The 2nd GaWC Student Workshop provides an opportunity for students (PhD, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate) to discuss issues on Globalisation, World Cities and History by exchanging and sharing their research ideas and work experiences in an informal and friendly environment. This will be facilitated by a number of senior researchers (e.g. Professors Piet Saey, Peter Taylor, and Michael Hoyler) and early-career researchers. Students from all disciplines of the social sciences and humanities are welcome (historians, archaeologists, geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, economists, political scientists...).

Op 9 november 2007 werd een afscheidsviering gehouden n.a.v. het pensioen van prof. dr. Pieter Saey. Ter gelegenheid van dit afscheid werd een Liber Amicorum samengesteld. Indien u een exemplaar van dit Liber Amicorum wenst te bestellen (kostprijs: 20 euro + verzendingskosten), gelieve contact op te nemen met Dominique Godfroid (tel.: +32(0)9 264 45 54).