Frank Witlox - Biography#

Frank Witlox holds a PhD in Urban Planning (Eindhoven University of Technology, promotor Harry Timmermans), a Master’s Degree in Applied Economics and a Master’s Degree in Maritime Sciences (both University of Antwerp). Currently, he is Head of Department and Senior Full Professor of Economic Geography at the Department of Geography of Ghent University (UGent).

(1) Teaching. Frank enjoys teaching. At Ghent University he teaches at Bachelor level: Transport Geography; Spatial Analysis II; at Master level: Urban Mobility and Logistics; The Geography of Enterprise, and Transport Economics and Policy. He is also Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology (Department of Geography) of the University of Tartu (Estonia) where he teaches Economic Geography of Urban Systems, and is the International Head of the Mobility Lab. As of April 2017 he is also an appointed Visiting Professor/High-end Foreign Expert at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA, China), College of Civil Aviation, and since September 2018 a 100 Talents Program laureate of Jiangsu Province. Frank Witlox has held part-time teaching positions at Hasselt University (Belgium), University of Antwerp (Belgium), Institute of Transport and Maritime Management Antwerp (UA-ITMMA, Belgium), and University of Leuven-Campus Kortrijk (Belgium), and was a guest lecturer/visiting professor at Lund University-Campus Helsingborg (Sweden), Chongqing University (China), Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) – School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (L’Aquila, Italy), and Odessa Polytechnic State University (Ukraine).

(2) Research. Frank Witlox heads the Social and Economic Geography (SEG) Research group at the Department of Geography (http://geoweb.ugent.be/seg). SEG consists of 38 people (2.1 FTE tenured staff members, 3 visiting professors, 5 post-docs, and 27 researchers). SEG conducted research for the European Commission, the Belgian government, the Dutch government, the Flemish government, city councils, consultancy firms, universities and institutions, and private companies. Frank’s research focuses on travel behavior analysis and modeling, travel and land use, sustainable mobility issues, business travel, cross-border mobility, city logistics, global commodity chains, globalization and world city-formation, polycentric urban development, and locational analysis of corporations. He has published widely on these topics (305+ WoS publications, h-index 52, 8800+ citations) (May 2023).

He was the (co-) supervisor of 25+ successful defended doctoral dissertations and +15 on-going PhDs.

Frank Witlox is the chair of the Institute for Sustainable Mobility Research at UGent (IDM, Instituut voor Duurzame Mobiliteit). IDM brings together top experts from 14 different research groups over 4 faculties, all in the field of urban mobility and logistics. UGent-IDM, with Frank Witlox as SPOC, is a core partner (tier 1) in the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Urban Mobility, a community that shapes the urban mobility transition at system-level, for and with citizens, across Europe.

(3) Academic services. Frank Witlox is since 2007 an Associate Director of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Research Network. Since 2010 he is the Director of the Doctoral School of Natural Sciences (UGent). The director is responsible for increasing the international and social value of the doctorate, aims to enhance the support provided to the doctoral students, and contributes to strengthen the quality culture in (doctoral) research. Frank Witlox is also the current chairman of the Belgium Institute of Transport Organizers (BITO-IBOT). As of January 1, 2016 Frank Witlox is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Transport Geography, a world-leading interdisciplinary journal focusing on the geographical dimensions of transport, travel and mobility (since January 2023, co-EiC). In addition, he is Section Editor-in-Chief of Smart Cities, an Associate Editor of Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, an Associate Editor of Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, a Co-Founding-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Urban Mobility, an Associate Editor of European Transport Research Review, an Associate Editor of Travel Behaviour and Society, and serves on the editorial board of the following web-of-science listed journals: European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, Journal of Urban Technology, Transport Reviews, Journal of Location Based Services, Transport, Cities, Transport Problems, Applied Mobilities, Sustainable Cities and Society.

(4) Honours. Since August 1, 2013 Frank Witlox has been appointed an Honorary Professor in the School of Geography at The University of Nottingham. On December 1, 2018, he was conferred the degree of Doctor honoris causa in Geography at the University of Tartu (Estonia). In June 2019, he was appointed a Life-time Honorary Member of Benelux Interuniversity Association of Transport Economists (BIVEC-GIBET), after having served ten years as the association’s chairman. On February 5, 2020, he was conferred the degree of Doctor honoris causa from the Odessa Polytechnic State University (Ukraine).