GaWC Research Network: Frank Witlox

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Frank Witlox

GaWC Associate Director (Transport and Logistics)

Frank Witlox has contributed to GaWC since 2003. His main research interest deals with the analysis of infrastructures underlying the day-to-day business carried out in and between global cities. The term 'infrastructure' is hereby used in a general guise, as it involves a wide range of technical arrangements, including container shipping networks, airline networks, and Internet backbone networks. Although each of these and other, related (transport) infrastructures are characterized by specific spatial and organizational logics, they have one major function in common: they collectively support the flows of people, ideas, knowledge, capital, goods, etc. that facilitate the (re)production of global cities as strategic places in the world economy. The straightforward premise underlying this perspective is that global cities are not only prominently connected in infrastructure networks, but above all combine the advantages of assuming central positions in these networks to support the global work that is routinely done within and between these cities. Issues such as travel behavior analysis and modeling, travel and land use, sustainable mobility issues, business travel, cross-border mobility, city logistics, global commodity chains, polycentric urban development, and locational analysis of corporations are more specific topics on which he has published. This research is recorded in a large number of journal contributions and edited book volumes (Derudder, B. & F. Witlox (Eds.) (2010) Commodity Chains and World Cities. Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell; Taylor, P.J., P. Ni, B. Derudder, M. Hoyler, J. Huang & F. Witlox (Eds.) (2011) Global Urban Analysis. A Survey of Cities in Globalization. London-Washington DC: Earthscan; Derudder, B., M. Hoyler, P.J. Taylor & F. Witlox (Eds.) (2012) International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities. Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Edgar; Derudder, B. & F. Witlox (Eds.) (2013) Global Cities – Critical Concepts in Urban Studies. Volume III – Infrastructures for Cities in Globalization. London-New York: Routledge).

As an economic geographer (with particular interest in transport geography and logistics) Frank Witlox conducted research for the European Commission (CIVITAS), the Belgian, Dutch and Flemish government, and was a speaker at a large number of international conferences.

Frank Witlox holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning (Eindhoven University of Technology), a Master's Degree in Applied Economics and a Master's Degree in Maritime Sciences (both University of Antwerp). Currently, he is Professor of Economic Geography in the Department of Geography at Ghent University. He teaches among others Transport Geography; Economic Geography; Geography of Enterprise; Transport, Logistics and Space; Spatial Modelling Techniques; Current Issues in Social and Economic Geography. He is also visiting professor at ITMMA (Institute of Transport and Maritime Management Antwerp) where he teaches Warehouse and Hinterland Distribution Management. Since 2010 he is the Director of the Doctoral School of Natural Sciences at Ghent University.