Southampton geography professor scoops national award
A Southampton geography professor has won a prestigious national award for his contribution to geographical science.
Professor Neil Wrigley, from the University of Southampton, has received the Royal Geographical Society's Murchison Award 2008 in recognition of his outstanding publications on the geography of retail and consumption.
He is being presented with the award by the Royal Geographical Society president Sir Gordon Conway at a special ceremony in Kensington, London, today.
The award, which dates to 1882, is for publications judged to have contributed most to geographical science in recent years.
Professor Wrigley has been a Professor of Geography at the University of Southampton since 1991 and has published many well-known books including Reading Retail: A Geographical Perspective on Retailing and Consumption Spaces, 2002.
His research focuses on economic geography, particularly retail and consumption, and he has written many respected papers on the restructuring, regulation and globalisation of the retail industry.
In recent years his research has concentrated on three themes: issues of food poverty, diet-related inequalities and food retail access in underserved low-income neighbourhoods in British cities; transnational retail and the global economy; and debates surrounding the Competition Commission's Inquiry 2006-8 into competitive conditions in the UK groceries market.
He has also been editor of the Journal of Economic Geography (Oxford University Press) since it was launched in 2001.
Professor Wrigley said: "I am delighted and honoured to receive the Murchison Award 2008. Research on retail and consumption is recognised as a world-class strength of the University of Southampton's School of Geography and it is a topic which offers some of the most fascinating and challenging areas of study in contemporary human geography."