Rikard Eriksson

Presentation

I obtained my PhD (economic geography) in 2010 on the thesis "Labour mobility and plant performance: The influence of proximity, relatedness and agglomeration". In 2012 I became senior lecturer in Human geography and associate professor in 2014. In 2016 I became full professor of economic geography. I am currently Associate head of department (Geography) and also serves as research co-ordinator at Cerum (Center for regional science).

Research

My research interests include evolutionary notions of regional economic transformation, regional development, agglomeration economies and the evolving geography of work and employment. I have written theoretically informed empirical articles on the role of labour mobility between jobs and regions, regional resilience and the geography of entreprenurship. I have also contributed with critical appraisals of amenity driven approaches to regional and urban development and its relevance in various spatial contexts.

Currently, my research focus is mainly on the social and economic effects of the giga-investments around green technologies in northern Sweden ("A promised land?"), but my current research also focus on how individuals, firms and regions adapt to chocks (for example, major plant closures and structural change). For a more detailed description of ongoing research projects, see "Research projects".

I am editor for Geografiska Annaler B and serves as member in the editorial board of Geography Compass (Economic geography section)

I am a frequent reviewer for journals like Economic Geography, Journal of Economic Geography, Regional Studies, Progress in Human Geography, European Urban and Regional Studies, European Planning Studies.

Scientific awards and honours

• 2024. Regional Science Publication of the year (2023) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (with Zoltan Elekes & Anna Baranowska-Rataj). Link to paper here.
• 2020. Recipient of Nordea´s scientific prize for outstanding contributions to social sciences, law or computer sciences. 
• 2017. Best paper award in Regional Studies, Regional Science during 2016 (with Evans Korang Adjei & Urban Lindgren). Link to paper here
• 2016. Kungliga Skytteanska Samfundets prize to a young outstanding scholar in social science at Umeå University 
• 2013. One of five top cited papers in Journal of Economic Geography during 2011 "How does labour mobility affect the performance of plants?" (Co-written with Ron Boschma & Urban Lindgren). Read paper here
• 2010. Winner of the Regional Studies Association's 'Early Career Award' for the paper "Localized Spillovers and Knowlegde Flows: How Does Proximity Influence the Performance of Plants?" Read paper here
• 2009. Selected as one of eight 'Editors' key 2009 articles' in Journal of Economic Geography for the article "Localized Mobility Clusters: Impacts of Labour Market Externalities on Firm Performance" (co-written with Urban Lindgren). Read paper here
• 2009. Awarded second best paper at the DRUID-DIME Academy Winter PhD Conference in competition with 50 other PhD-students for the paper "Localised Spillovers or Knowledge Flows? A study on the effect of proximity and labour mobility on plant performance"
• 2008. Nominated for the 'DRUID best paper award' at The 25th DRUID Celebration Conference 2008 on Entrepreneurship and Innovation for the paper "Labour mobility, related variety and the performance of plants: a Swedish study". (co-written with Ron Boschma and Urban Lindgren)