Awards
Prizes, fellowships and honorary degrees, from a national undergraduate award in 1990 to the Sir Peter Hall Award in 2025.

Major awards
- 2025

Sir Peter Hall Award for Lifetime Contribution
The highest accolade of the Regional Studies Association, for outstanding lifetime contributions to regional studies.
- 2018

ERSA Prize in Regional Science
The European Regional Science Association’s prize for outstanding regional scientists, arguably the highest in the field.
- 2011–2016

European Research Council Advanced Grant
Principal Investigator of the project Spatial Spikes.
- 2009–2012

- 2001–2006

Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award
The only social scientist to have received it.
- 2001

Philip Leverhulme Prize
For work on economic geography.
- 2001

Gill Memorial Award, Royal Geographical Society
For research on regional disparities and regional policy.
Honorary doctorates
- 2019

Doctor Honoris Causa in Geosciences, Utrecht University
The Netherlands.
- 2019

Fellowships
- 2026

- 2023
Fellow of the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission
- 2022
Lifetime Fellowship, Regional Studies Association
- 2018–2019
Fellow of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission
- 2018

- 2011

Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences
United Kingdom.
- 2011

- 2009–2012
Professorial Research Fellow, IMDEA Social Sciences
Madrid.
- 1996

Prizes for books and papers
- 2021

Regional Studies Best Paper Award
For “The geography of EU discontent”, with Lewis Dijkstra and Hugo Poelman. Voted by the editors of Regional Studies.
- 2019

Martin Beckmann Award
Best paper in Papers in Regional Science in 2018, for “Institutions vs. ‘first-nature’ geography”, with Tobias Ketterer.
- 2014

Regional Studies Best Paper Award
For “Do institutions matter for regional development?”.
- 2012

Regional Studies Association Best Book Award
For the Handbook of Local and Regional Development, with Andy Pike and John Tomaney. Voted by the RSA membership.
- 2005

Ashby Prize
Most innovative paper in Environment and Planning A in 2004, for “Is there a global link between regional disparities and devolution?”, with Nicholas Gill.
Best Global Strategy Paper Prize, Strategic Management Society
For “Exposure to OFDI and regional labour markets”, with Luisa Gagliardi and Simona Iammarino.
Service and other honours
- 2026

- 2025
- 2022–2024
- 2017–2019
Member of the five-strong committee of the Vautrin Lud Prize
Known as the ‘Nobel Prize for Geography’.
- 2014–2017
Member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Innovation (RISE)
Advising the Research and Innovation Commissioner.
- 2014–2016
Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Economics of Innovation
- 2014

- 2012–2014
Member of the Economic High Level Group Innovation for Growth (i4g)
Advising the Research and Innovation Commissioner.
- 2012–2014
Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Employment
Early distinctions
- 1996
Distinction for the outstanding quality of a PhD thesis
European University Institute, Florence.
- 1994

Best PhD thesis of 1993, School of Geography and History
Complutense University of Madrid.
- 1991
Distinction for outstanding MSc performance
Institut d’Etudes Européennes, Université Libre de Bruxelles.
- 1990

First Spanish National Award for undergraduate performance
Geography, History and History of Art, across the whole of Spain.
- 1990

First Prize of the Complutense University for undergraduate performance in the Humanities