“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 provided me with invaluable tacit knowledge. As a graduate student finishing my PhD, the program helped me not only to conceptualize the field of economic geography, but also to imagine my own place within it. Early conversations with peers that I met in Madison during that week in 2006 continue on to this day.”

Marion Werner, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, SUNY-Buffalo

“The Summer Institute in Economic Geography is an extraordinary event. It is somewhere in-between a state-of-the-art convention for economic geography (where it stands today and where it needs to evolve) and a rite of passage for early career scholars (once one gains a sense of “location” in something as fluid and difficult to grasp as an epistemic community). Valuable, indispensable, and highly recommended.”

Michiel van Meeteren, doctoral student, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Ghent University, Belgium

“The 2012 Summer Institute in Economic Geography is the highlight of my experience with conferences and forums. Whilst fortunate to practice geography in New Zealand it comes with isolation from other economic geographers and geography conferences, and this tends to be reproduced at large events such as the AAG and RGS-IBG. As a platform, the Summer Institute, constituted by a group of prominent and emergent economic geographers, provided five days to specifically come to know each other and our diverse work, and discuss perspectives of economy geography around a set of disciplinary debates. Rather than just giving a paper and/or attending a conference session, I came away from the Summer Institute with an enriched perspective of economic geography (and economic geographers), a new set of relationships and opportunities for future research collaboration, and importantly, a commitment to being an economic geographer and contributing to our discipline.”

Stephen FitzHerbert, doctoral researcher, University of Auckland; Senior Tutor, Department of Geography, Massey University

“The Summer Institute in Economic Geography is a fantastic venue to engage with emerging debates and practices in the discipline and to network with both early career and established scholars. As a participant at the Institute (2014) I gained practical knowledge about teaching and professionalization that has greatly aided my development as a new faculty member. I also made academic connections that have led to collaborative research projects with colleagues from around the world.”

Theresa Enright, PhD, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto