GaWC Research Network: Michael Hoyler

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Michael Hoyler

GaWC Associate Director (European Cities)

Michael Hoyler has been a key contributor to GaWC since 1999, when he first worked with Jon Beaverstock and Peter Taylor on some of the pioneering early studies that laid the groundwork for the development of a relational urban geography of cities in globalization. Then located at the University of Heidelberg, he undertook the Frankfurt-based research in the Anglo-German Foundation sponsored study Comparing London and Frankfurt as World Cities, a path-breaking qualitative account of cooperation and competition in one of the leading European world city dyads. Michael then led the research on Rhine-Main in the major Interreg IIIb project Polynet (funded by the EU and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg), which developed a new perspective on the functional interconnectedness of European 'mega-city regions'.

Since joining Loughborough University, Michael's research has been instrumental in further developing GaWC's agenda-setting global urban research programme. This has included research on the expansion of global city functions into wider (global/mega) city-regions and associated polycentric metropolitan development, the study of the role of cities in economic expansion (funded by the Leverhulme Trust), and the further conceptualization and measurement of global urban networks (funded by the ESRC). Results of this research have been published widely, including in six books co-edited with GaWC colleagues: Global Urban Analysis: A Survey of Cities in Globalization (Earthscan, 2011), the International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities (Edward Elgar, 2012), Cities in Globalization (Global Cities, Vol. I, Routledge, 2013), Megaregions: Globalization's New Urban Form? (Edward Elgar, 2015), Doing Global Urban Research (Sage, 2018) and Global City Makers (Edward Elgar, 2018). Other recent key outputs include co-edited special issues of Environment and Planning A, Regional Studies, Urban Studies and Raumforschung und Raumordnung.

Michael has worked with policy makers and economic development agencies in a range of cities across the world (including Abu Dhabi, Dublin, Frankfurt, London and Sydney). His research has been covered extensively in the national and international media.

Michael Hoyler is Reader in Human Geography in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, UK. He has published widely in the field of urban studies, including 10 (co-)edited books and special issues, as well as a significant number of key journal papers and book chapters. He is editor of the GaWC website.