Committee
The British and Irish Section is run by a committee of thirteen elected members, and the committee may co-opt a further three members. The Chairman and the committee are elected at the Annual General Meeting which is held during the Annual Conference each year. The conduct of the business of the Section is governed by the Constitution.
Executive Committee Members
Professor Philip McCann (Chair)
Philip McCann holds the Endowed Chair of Economic Geography at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, and is co-editor of Papers in Regional Science, co-editor of Spatial Economic Analysis, and Series Editor of the Edward Elgar book series New Horizons in Regional Science. In 2002 Philip won the Hewings Award from the North American Regional Science Association, an award for outstanding scholarship by a scholar under the age of forty-five. Philip has previously taught at Cambridge University UK, University of Pennsylvania USA, the University of Reading UK, and the University of Waikato, NZ. In 2008 Philip McCann was an International Expert member of the Barca Commission convened by the European Commission to report on the future of EU Cohesion Policy, and in April 2010 he was appointed Special Adviser to Johannes Hahn, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, on matters relating to the reform and future development of European Cohesion Policy. E-mail: P.McCann@rug.nl.
Dr Declan Jordan (Secretary)
Declan Jordan is a Lecturer in Economics at University College Cork (UCC). Declan’s research interests include business innovation, regional development and competitiveness, business performance and strategy and innovation and enterprise policy. Declan lectures at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and has also organised Executive Workshops in Innovation for Competitiveness. He is also Programme Director for the BSc Business and Financial Economics, which is a joint degree between the Department of Economics at UCC and four Chinese universities. He is a member of the Research Committee of the Faculty of Commerce in UCC. Declan has substantial management and corporate experience, having worked as Manager, Consulting with the leading Irish treasury and financial consulting firm in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and as Treasury Manager with Intel Ireland, before joining the Department of Economics in UCC. E-mail: D.Jordan@ucc.ie.
Dr Alessandra Faggian (Treasurer)
Alessandra Faggian is Reader (Associate Professor) in Economic Geography at the University of Southampton, School of Geography. Prior to that, she was Lecturer in Economics at the University of Reading, Department of Economics. Dr Faggian’s research interests lie in the field of Regional and Urban Economics, Demography, Labour Economics and Economics of Education. In 2007 she was awarded the Moss Madden Memorial Medal by RSAIBIS, and in 2008 an ESRC Fellowship in conjunction with the Department of Education and Learning in Northern Ireland (DELNI) to investigate the impact of the introduction of tuition fees in higher education. She has been Treasurer of the RSAIBIS since 2009 and member of the editorial board of Papers in Regional Science and the management committee of Spatial Economic Analysis. E-mail: A.Faggian@soton.ac.uk.
Elected Members
Dr Maria Abreu (Webmaster)
Maria Abreu is Research Fellow at the Department of Economic Geography, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and Fellow of the Programme on Regional Innovation, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Her research interests include regional economic development; higher education; graduate career paths, skills, training and innovation; and spatial disparities in poverty and health. She has worked on policy research projects for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) of Northern Ireland and the World Bank. Prior to coming to the UK she worked for the World Bank as a consultant on the regional economic development in Indonesia. E-mail: ma405@cam.ac.uk.
Mr Grant Allan
Grant Allan is a Research Fellow in the Fraser of Allander Institute, Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde. A graduate of the University of Strathclyde and Edinburgh University, he joined the Institute in 2002 and has worked across a number of research projects since then. His most recent research has been into the economic evaluation of renewable technologies, regional energy-economy-environment modelling and the evaluation of regional energy policy. He has also published on the economic evaluation of sport and sports tourism. He also contributes to the Fraser Economic Commentary. E-mail: grant.j.allan@strath.ac.uk.
Professor Harvey Armstrong
Harvey Armstrong is Professor Emeritus (formerly Professor of Economic Geography) at the University of Sheffield and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has previously worked at the University of Loughborough and University of Lancaster, and has held visiting appointments at the University of British Columbia, and the University of West Virginia (Regional Research Institute). His principal research interests are in regional policy (including EU regional policy), regional and local economic growth disparities and the analysis of small states and island economies. He has undertaken extensive advisory and consultancy work within the UK and internationally, most recently on Economic Research Advisory Panel of the Welsh Assembly Government and with the European Commission on the 2007-2013 Cohesion Policy Strategic Guidelines and ex post evaluation of EU regional policy. E-mail: H.Armstrong@Sheffield.ac.uk.
Dr Nola Hewitt-Dundas
Nola Hewitt-Dundas is Senior Lecturer in innovation at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), UK. For the past 15 months she has been an Innovation Policy and Research Fellow with the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA), London. Nola is also founding Director of InnovationLab (Ireland) Ltd, a specialist academic consultancy company advising on issues related to innovation, business policy and regional economic development. Nola’s research interests include evaluation of government policy to promote innovation, technology transfer and economic development. She has also researched in the area of entrepreneurship and small business strategy and has acted as an international expert to the World Bank as well as Government departments in Ireland and the UK. E-mail: Nm.Hewitt@qub.ac.uk.
Dr Stephen Hynes
Stephen Hynes is currently a senior researcher in the Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit (SEMRU), the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland. He has a strong background in applied environmental/natural resource economic research and extensive work experience in econometric modelling. Stephen has previously worked as an environmental economist in the Rural Economy Research Centre, Teagasc and as a lecturer in Economics in the Department of Economics NUI Galway. Stephen’s main research interest is in microeconomic behaviour analysis, related to natural resource/environmental and rural development policy and his work has been published by a number of the top ranked journals in the fields of agriculture, environmental and natural resource economics. E-mail: stephen.hynes@nuigalway.ie.
Dr Helena Lenihan
Helena Lenihan is Assistant Dean, Research and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research follows four interrelated streams: role of entrepreneurship in economic development and firm growth; innovation policy; industrial/enterprise policy development and enterprise and innovation policy evaluation. She has authored and co-authored several internationally refereed journal articles, a book, book chapters and commissioned reports, and been invited to deliver several keynote addresses. In 2006, Helena Lenihan was Conference Chair for the 9th European Network on Industrial Policy (EUNIP) International Conference which was hosted at the University of Limerick. In 2009, she received a National Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Academy for the Integration of Research and Teaching and Learning (NAIRTL). E-mail: helena.lenihan@ul.ie.
Professor Aisling Reynolds-Feighan
Professor Aisling Reynolds-Feighan is Associate Professor of Transport Economics at the School of Economics, University College Dublin, and Research Associate of the UCD Geary Institute. Aisling’s research interests include airport policy and competition, air transport networks, transport system organisation, and transport metrics. She has recently completed a research project on “A comparative analysis of air transport metrics” for the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), and is working on a project to identify the social and economic implications of establishing an ‘Air Bridge’ between North West Wales and Eastern Ireland. Aisling received the Moss Madden Memorial Medal in Regional Science in 2008 for the best paper in Regional Science published by a member of the British and Irish Section. E-mail: aisling.reynolds@ucd.ie
Professor Stephen Roper
Stephen Roper is Professor of Enterprise at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, and Director of the Centre for SMEs. Alongside his post at WBS, Stephen is a Director of InnovationLab (Ireland) Ltd an academic spin-out company which focuses on innovation policy and related issues. Stephen is also a member of the ESRC Strategic Priorities Board and a consulting editor of the International Journal of Small Business. Stephen’s major research interests are in enterprise growth and development, diversity and business performance, innovation, regional development, and industrial policy evaluation. Stephen has consulted on aspects of innovation and enterprise policy for a wide range of organizations including the OECD, the DTI, the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, and the UK government’s Small Business Service. E-mail: stephen.roper@wbs.ac.uk.
Dr Karen Turner
Karen Turner is Reader in the Division of Economics, University of Stirling. Her main research area is accounting and modelling energy-economy-environment interaction using input-output and computable general equilibrium (CGE) techniques. Karen is also Research Associate of the Fraser of Allander Institute for Research on the Scottish Economy and is regularly involved in policy advocacy and advice. She is currently Principal Investigator on two ESRC-funded projects. The first of these began in October 2007 and is titled “An empirical general equilibrium analysis of the factors that govern the extent of energy rebound effects in the UK economy”. In 2008 Karen became one of six ESRC Climate Change Leadership Fellows. Karen is also Co-Investigator on two projects with the EPSRC Supergen Marine and Hydrogen Consortiums. E-mail: karen.turner@stir.ac.uk.
Dr Dan Vickers
Dan Vickers is Lecturer in Social and Spatial Inequalities at the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield. Dan’s research interests are centred on social and spatial divisions within society. This includes: Social and spatial inequalities, residential segregation and methods and techniques for measuring these differences. Dan is especially interested in methods of clustering and classification, which enable the grouping of areas based on their socio-economic characteristics. Such techniques enable the creation of geodemographic and area classifications such as the National Classification of Census Output Areas which Dan created on behalf of the Office for National Statistics. His current research is on “Changing Residential Patterns in the UK” as part of the ESRC’s Understanding Population Trends and Processes (UPTAP) Programme. E-mail: D.Vickers@Sheffield.ac.uk.
Co-opted Members
Professor Peter Batey
Peter Batey has been Lever Professor of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Liverpool since 1989. He was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in the Regional Science Program at the University of Illinois, 1981-82 and has held visiting appointments at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Queensland. He has carried out a range of analytical and policy evaluation studies, notably in relation to airport expansion proposals, widening participation in higher education and European structural funds. He serves as an editor of the Town Planning Review and has played a major part in the RTPI’s Education, Membership and Accreditation Panels. He plays an active role in urban and regional affairs, notably in relation to the Mersey Basin Campaign, a 25-year campaign bringing together local authorities, business, voluntary organisations and government agencies, and aimed at delivering water improvements and waterside regeneration throughout the Mersey Basin, which includes the conurbations of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. E-mail: pwjbatey@liv.ac.uk.
Dr Lisa De Propris
Lisa De Propris is a Senior Lecturer in Industrial Economics in the Birmingham Business School. Her main research interests are: small firms and clusters; competitiveness in clusters and regions; forms of clusters and governance; innovation; clusters and foreign direct investment; regional development; knowledge economy and clusters, and creative and cultural industries. In parallel, she has been concerned with the role of the government and institutions, and has looked at policy implications, for example, in relation with EU regional and cluster policy and more recently with place leadership. Across these themes, she has made a distinctive contribution through publications in top academic journals, sponsored academic projects and involvement in scholarly and debates. E-mail: l.de_propris@bham.ac.uk.
Professor Peter McGregor
Peter McGregor is Professor of Economics at the University of Strathclyde. Current research interests include regional economic modelling and the evaluation of regional economic policies. He was Editor of Regional Studies, the journal of the Regional Studies Association from 1991-1996. He has held visiting academic posts in Sweden and Germany, and has consultancy experience in the Middle and Far East. He has acted as a UNDP-funded consultant to the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department, Malaysia, has been a member of the Bank of England’s Panel of Academic Consultants and is currently a Special Researcher to the Development Policy Research Institute, The Hokkaido University, Japan. E-mail: p.mcgregor@strath.ac.uk.
