Academic Career and Contributions
He was promoted to full professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983. He assumed the headship of the geography department the same year. He was later appointed in the departments of urban and regional planning and in economics. In 2006, he moved half his line to the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. In 1989, with Philip Israilevich from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Geoffrey Hewings formed the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory (REAL), a graduate students research center in regional science and a cooperative venture between the Fed and the University of Illinois until 2004. REAL is Geoffrey’s dearest achievement. Since its inception, REAL has provided at least two years (and usually more) support for 38 doctoral students from agricultural economics, economics, geography and urban and regional planning, welcomed 8 "bolsa sandwiche" PhD students from Brazil who spent one year at REAL working on their doctoral dissertations and hosted over 100 international visitors (visiting students, visiting scholars and visiting professors) who stayed three months or more. At any one time, from 15-30 people will be in residence. REAL's mission is to provide timely, high quality analytical economic information for a variety of uses such as public policy decision making by public sector agencies and for strategic marketing in the private sector. REAL's capabilities revolve around comprehensive state and metropolitan models that integrate econometric and input/output analysis to provide for both impact and forecasting analyses. While REAL's primary focus has been on the economies of the Midwest, REAL has collaborated in the development of models for several regions on the east coast. In addition, two models have been constructed for various states in Brazil and a third is under construction. A model for the Jakarta Metropolitan region is also under construction. REAL draws its staff from both cooperating institutions. Advanced graduate students in the fields of economics, geography, urban and regional planning, computer science and mathematics are also employed on projects, many of which become the basis for theses and dissertations. While Geoffrey has a profound respect for the wide range of regional science techniques, his specialty lies in the field of general equilibrium and input/output analysis. These techniques allow him to build regional economic models that serve as valuable tools for public sector agencies and for strategic marketing in the private sector by analyzing economic conditions and providing forecasts at the local level.
Geoffrey Hewings has served as President, Executive Director and Executive Secretary of the Regional Science Association International in the past. In order to recognize Geoffrey’s academic works and more especially his devotion to introducing numerous graduate students to Regional Science and mentoring them as young scholars, the North American Regional Science Council bestows every year an award in his name to a scholar who has recently completed his doctoral studies and has made distinguished contributions to Regional Science research.
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