“As a Ph.D. candidate at a school with a small Ph.D. program, the Summer Institute In Economic Geography was a perfect way to develop a group of peers in the field. Everyone was capable and interesting, and someone you could talk with for hours. The sessions were engaging and the faculty terrific—and very supportive.”

Peter Wissoker, doctoral researcher, Department of City & Regional Planning Cornell University


“The 2014 Summer Institute in Economic Geography was one of the most important academic events I have had the fortune of attending. While every facet of the meeting was superlative, the opportunity to spend time with economic geographers from different parts of the world, working on diverse topics, was invaluable both intellectually and socially. These connections will bear fruit throughout my career and have already led to collaborative projects that would not have happened otherwise.”

Patrick Bigger, PhD, Marie Curie Research Fellow in Political Ecology, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester


“The Summer Institute in Economic Geography has been a very rich experience for me. Its mixture of different perspectives on the field, involving productive debate and engagement between them, creates new and exciting inputs for theory, methods and practice which are especially important for those of us in the beginning of our academic trajectories. The spaces for informal interactions during the event also open up productive dialogues and help strengthen contacts between participants. In my specific case, working outside the Anglophone and northern academic circuits, it has been not only an opportunity to interact directly with researchers inserted in those contexts, but also with other global south academics, with whom we tend to have difficulties in engaging directly (due to still weak south to south connections).”

Felipe Magalhães, doctoral researcher, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil


“The Summer Institute for Economic Geography (SIEG) is a one-of-a-kind event, bringing together researchers across a variety of themes around one of geography’s most dynamic subdisciplines. The SIEG had many strengths, but a few come to mind. SIEG was inclusive, meaning that participation was equally split between quantitative and qualitative researchers, as well as between men and women. SIEG included perspectives from around the globe (literally), and even the “expert panel” of senior scholars comprised a diversity of intellectual traditions and methodological approaches. Another strength was that delegates were evenly divided between PhD students, post-docs, and junior faculty, which made conversations about publishing, grantsmanship, and careers quite useful. The personal interactions were the most worthwhile aspect for me, and my work on gentrification was recently published in Urban Studies with a co-author that I met at the Summer Institute in Zurich.”

Thomas Sigler, PhD, Lecturer in Human Geography, School of Geography, Planning & Environmental Management, University of Queensland


“The Summer Institute has become a right of passage in economic geography. It’s the can’t-miss, traveling genius loci where young scholars in the field can forge connections across continents that produce conference panels, special issues and other collaborations for years to come. It’s been less than a year since I attended and it’s already responsible for one conference panel, and a special issue is in the works.”

Mark Kear, PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona