Abstract
European Urban and Regional Studies is delighted to announce that in 2014 it is launching a new prize for the most innovative paper published each year in the journal. The prize is being established in the name of one of the founding editors of the journal, Jim Lewis, who along with Ray Hudson, David Sadler and Allan Williams set the journal on its course to becoming a leading international voice in critical urban and regional studies. As long-standing readers of the journal may know, Jim sadly passed away in 2011. We are delighted that Jim’s family, his wife Jenny and son Matthew, have been very supportive of the establishment of this prize in Jim’s name. We are also grateful to our publishers, Sage, for their support. In what follows, we set out some of Jim’s primary contributions and his role in the journal.
Jim devoted the whole of his professional career, both in the academic and policy arenas, to researching the causes and amelioration of uneven regional development. Although his early research was on East Africa, the focus soon shifted to Europe after taking up a post at Durham in the mid-1970s.
In the early 1980s he was co-editor of the highly influential Regions in Crisis volume, a collection of translated European papers that quickly become a landmark in terms of opening up new theoretical perspectives for the English language academic community. Thereafter he was engaged in sustained research on uneven development in Portugal for the next decade, and was part of the Durham team who undertook the Localities study in Teesside. Jim was also committed and inspirational on Europe, with involvement in field trips to Greece, Portugal and Spain and contributions via ERASMUS programmes on and in Europe. It was only a short leap from there to his role as one of the founding co-editors of European Urban and Regional Studies, the first volume of which was published in 1994.
Jim continued in this role for the first 10 years of the journal, combining his general editorial responsibilities with being the book review editor. He was ever present at all the journal’s earlier conferences, and will be long remembered for his impassioned and incisive contribution to theoretical and policy debates, for being a hub of social activity, and for always knowing the best local venue where discussion could continue, often long into the night.
After he left Durham to take up a post in the North East Regional Development Agency, he resigned from his editorial role but continued to be an active member of the Editorial Board for many years. His early death in 2011 was a tragic loss for his family and friends, and for those who remember his enthusiastic, knowledgeable and socially informed contributions. His academic legacy is the unique role of the European Urban and Regional Studies journal, and he would have been surprised and delighted to be associated with the new prize that bears his name.