Gertler, Meric

• Gertler, Meric S.

Meric Gertler is President of the University of Toronto (2013–), Professor of Geography and Planning, the Goldring Chair in Canadian Studies, and a member of the Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He was previously Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science from 2008-2013.

He holds degrees from the McMaster University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University. Professor Gertler is internationally renowned for his research on the geography of innovative activity and the economies of city-regions. He has served as an advisor to local, regional and national governments in Canada, the United States, Singapore and Europe, as well as to international agencies such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union. He was the founding co-director of the Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems (PROGRIS) with Professor David Wolfe at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and served as director of the Department of Geography’s Program in Planning.

He has published nine books including Manufacturing Culture: The Institutional Geography of Industrial Practice, and Growing Urban Economies: Innovation, Creativity, and Governance in Canadian City-Regions, the latter co-edited with Professor David Wolfe. He is also co-editor of the widely used Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography, winner of Choice Magazine’s “Outstanding Academic Book” award, and the New Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography (with Gordon Clark, Maryann Feldman and Dariusz Wójcik).

He has held visiting appointments at Oxford University, University College London, UCLA, and the University of Oslo. He holds honorary doctorates from Lund University, Sweden, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and Université de Montréal. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Academy of Social Sciences (UK), the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He has received the Award for Scholarly Distinction in Geography from the Canadian Association of Geographers, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Distinguished Scholarship Honor from the Association of American Geographers, and the Sir Peter Hall Award from the Regional Studies Association (UK). In December 2015, Professor Gertler was appointed to the Order of Canada.

• “Biography”, University of Toronto, Office of the President [retrieved 13 Sep. 2021]
• “Town and Gown”, University of Toronto Magazine, 1 December 2013 [retrieved 13 Sep. 2021]