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Dr Martin Sokol

Dr Martin Sokol
Visiting Research Fellow

Department of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
email: m.sokol@qmul.ac.uk

Research interests:

Research areas: Economic geography, regional and urban development, knowledge economy, transformations in Eastern and Central Europe

Martin Sokol is an economic geographer whose primary research interests revolve around social and spatial inequalities in the context of the ‘New Europe’. He is particularly interested in the rise of the ‘new knowledge-based economy’ in the ‘West’, the fall of state-socialism in the ‘East’ and the implications of these two processes for cities and regions in Western and East-Central Europe.

Martin completed a PhD thesis at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. His doctoral research engaged with the ‘knowledge economy’ and the ‘learning region’ concepts while focusing on ‘institutional thickness’ in the UK (Scotland) and East-Central Europe (Slovakia).

Since then, Martin has partaken on several major research projects including:

POLYNET – Sustainable Management of European Polycentric Mega-City Regions (EU Interreg IIIB project led by Professor Sir Peter Hall on the geography of knowledge-intensive financial and business services in the context of globalising mega-city regions - the Greater Dublin Region case study);

Telecommunication Services and Networks: Territorial Trends and Basic Supply of Infrastructure for Territorial Cohesion (ESPON project on the geography of telecommunications services and networks in Ireland and Slovakia);

TRANSFORM – Benchmarking and Fostering Transformative Use of ICT in EU Regions (FP6 project on ‘regional cultures’ and regional institutional capacities and their role in fostering transformational impacts of ICT on the economy and society in Europe).

ACRE - Accommodating Creative Knowledge: Competitiveness of European Metropolitan Regions within the Enlarged Union (FP6 project on the ‘creative class’ and ‘creative industries’ and their role in promoting economic competitiveness in European city-regions);

Martin is a Member of the ‘Economy, Development and Social Justice Research Group’ [new window]. He is also involved in the activities of ‘The City Centre’, the Departments’ new research centre for collaborative research and related activities that are focused on the city, especially within its ‘Economic geographies of the city’ research stream.

Martin has also contributed to the Department's research on the ‘living wage’ in London. The report 

The impact of improved pay and conditions on low-paid urban workers [PDF 1.1 MB]

can be downloaded.

Publications:

  • Sokol, M., Egeraat, C. van, and Williams, B. (2008) ‘Revisiting the “Informational City”: space of flows, knowledge intensive business services and polycentricity in an emerging global city-region of Dublin’. Forthcoming in Regional Studies.
  • Hoyler, M., Kloosterman, R. and Sokol, M. (2008) ‘Globalisation, city-regions and polycentricity in North West Europe’. (Editorial) Forthcoming in Regional Studies.
  • Sokol, M. (2008), Regional connectivity-accessibility. In: Kitchin, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Amsterdam: Elsevier (forthcoming).
  • Rochovská, A., Blazek, M., and Sokol, M. (2008) Ako zlepsit kvalitu geografie: o dôlezitosti kvalitatívneho vyskumu v humánnej geografii (Adding quality into geography: on the importance of qualitative research in human geography). Forthcoming in Geograficky casopis (Geographical Journal).
  • Sokol, M. (2008) ‘City-regions in the “knowledge-based economy”: on conceptual issues’. Urban Studies (under review).
  • Sokol, M. (2007) ‘Space of flows, uneven regional development and the geography of financial services in Ireland’. Growth and Change, Vol. 38, No. 2, June 2007, pp.224-259.
  • Rehák, S. and Sokol, M. (2007), Regional pathways towards the knowledge economy: experiences from Slovakia. In: K. Piech (Ed.) Knowledge and Innovation Processes in Central and Eastern European Economies. Warsaw: The Knowledge & Innovation Institute. pp.228-246.
  • Sokol, M., Egeraat, C. van and Williams, B. (2007), Revisiting the ‘Informational City’: Space of Flows, Polycentricity and Knowledge-intensive Business Services in an Emerging Global City. Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Research Bulletin 228 (June 2007); Available on-line
  • Convery, F., McInerney, D., Sokol, M. and Stafford, P. (2006) ‘Organising space in a dynamic economy – insights for policy from the Irish experience’. Built Environment, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp.172-182.
  • Sokol, M. (2006), City-regions in the global knowledge economy. In: Yarwood, J. (Ed.) The Dublin-Belfast Development Corridor: Ireland’s Mega-City Region? Aldershot: Ashgate. (ISBN 0 7546 4702 1).
  • Egeraat, C. van and Sokol, M. (2006), Service Firm Connections in the Dublin-Belfast Corridor. In: Yarwood, J. (Ed.) In: Yarwood, J. (Ed.) The Dublin-Belfast Development Corridor: Ireland’s Mega-City Region? Aldershot: Ashgate. (ISBN 0 7546 4702 1).
  • Egeraat, C. van, Sokol, M. and Stafford, P. (2006), ‘Greater Dublin in the Celtic Tiger Economy: Towards a Polycentric Mega-City Region?’ In: Hall, P. and Pain, K. (eds), The Polycentric Metropolis: Learning from Mega-City Regions in Europe, London: Earthscan. (ISBN-13: 978-1-84407-329-0; ISBN-10: 1-84407-329-7).
  • Sokol, M., Wills, J., Anderson, J., Buckley, M., Evans, Y., Frew, C. and Hamilton, P. (2006) The impact of improved pay and conditions on low-paid urban workers: the case of the Royal London Hospital. London: Queen Mary, University of London, Department of Geography (ISBN 0-902238-25-6). [click here to download]
  • Sokol, M. (2004), ‘The “Knowledge Economy”: A Critical View’. In: P. Cooke and A. Piccaluga (Eds.) Regional Economies as Knowledge Laboratories. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp.216-231. (ISBN 1 84376 821 6).
  • Sokol, M. (2002) Knowledge economy: issues and challenges, Journal of Economics/Ekonomicky casopis, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp.85-106 (in Slovak, English résumé). (ISSN 0013-3035).
  • Sokol, M. (2001) Post-industrial economic transformation: implications for urban and regional systems, Architecture & Urbanism/Architektura & Urbanizmus, Vol. 35, No.1-2, pp.15-26 (in Slovak, English resumé). (ISSN 0044-8680).
  • Sokol, M. (2001) Central and Eastern Europe a Decade After the Fall of State-socialism: Regional Dimensions of Transition Processes, Regional Studies, Vol. 35, No. 7, pp.645-655. (ISSN Print 0034-3404).
  • Sokol, M. and Tomaney, J. (2001), ‘Regionalising the Knowledge Economy: What’s the Point?’ In: Maconochie A. and Hardy S. (Eds.) Regionalising the Knowledge Economy, Conference Proceedings of the Regional Studies Association Annual Conference November 2001, Seaford: RSA, pp.108-110. (ISBN 1 897721 18 8).
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