Dr Heike Jöns
Dr. phil. (Heidelberg) FHEA FRGS

Lecturer in Human Geography

email: H.Jons@lboro.ac.uk
phone: +44 (0)1509 228199
fax: +44 (0)1509 223930

Room NN.1.20b, Martin Hall Building, East Park

Upcoming event

2nd International Conference on Geographies of Education

Loughborough, 10-11th September 2012, Call for papers

Research Experience and Interests

My research revolves around the geographies of science and higher education.

Most of my work has examined transnational academic mobility of researchers with the aim of comparing geographical patterns, motivations, experiences and outcomes by home country, discipline, research practice, gender, career stage, life cycle, and type of biographical linkages to the host country. The empirical data was generated in three research projects by conducting semi-structured interviews, large-scale postal surveys, secondary statistical analysis, and archival research. Two projects analysed the two main schemes for visiting researchers in Germany funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, namely Humboldt Research Awards (1972-1996) and Humboldt Research Fellowships (1954-2000). The third project has turned the focus on academic travel from the University of Cambridge in the period 1885 to 1955. Key questions include the role of different types of academic travel for the emergence of new knowledge centres, for the formation of disciplinary identities, and for imperial knowledge networks. Aiming to move beyond the national perspective dominant in research on academic mobility and scholarly networks, this project has also investigated how the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge sought to use honorary degrees to establish new international ‘alliances’ within and beyond the academic world.

Recently I have begun to develop collaborative work on universities from two perspectives. The first explores recent trends in global higher education through the critical engagement with internationalization strategies and world university rankings. The second studies the historical geography of British universities with an emphasis on the 1960s, the decade in which 24 new universities received their charters and thus almost doubled the size of the national system.

Having been trained as a geographer in Germany, I also have a background in research on geographies of bank branch networks in Hungary (1987-1999) and on European centres of interaction in the Middle Ages (300-1519). These research experiences are linked by an interest in the nature of actor-networks and related debates on theories and practices of representation. In the context of my work on academic mobility, I became especially interested in the types of entities responsible for knowledge production and how these ‘actants’ shape the geographies of different scientific and scholarly practices. This resulted in a critical interrogation of recent debates about social constructivism and actor-network theory and the question of how a geographical perspective on scientific practice and interaction may shed a different light on these debates.

My work has been funded by the German Research Council, the Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, the British Academy, the University of Heidelberg, the University of Nottingham and Loughborough University. Previous users of my research include the Department of Planning, New South Wales Government, Australia; the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development; members of the German Parliament; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany; and the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Germany. From 2004 to 2006 I held a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship in the School of Geography, University of Nottingham, and in 2005, I was awarded the Wissenschaftspreis für Anthropogeographie der Voss-Stiftung für Geographie, a national prize for outstanding research in human geography by an early career scholar.

Key Publications

Books

Meusburger, P., Livingstone, D.N. and Jöns, H. (eds) (2010) Geographies of Science. Dordrecht: Springer. 264 pp. ISBN 978-90-481-8610-5 [READ ONLINE] [BUY]

Jöns, H. (2003) Grenzüberschreitende Mobilität und Kooperation in den Wissenschaften. Heidelberg: University of Heidelberg. 514 pp. ISBN 3-88570-116-2 [PDF 2002 VERSION] [BUY]

Meusburger, P. and Jöns, H. (eds) (2001) Transformations in Hungary: Essays in Economy and Society. Heidelberg: Physica. 382 pp. ISBN 3-7908-1412-1 [GOOGLE BOOKS] [BUY]

Jöns, H. and Klagge, B. (1997) Bankwesen und Regionalstruktur in Ungarn. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 77 pp. ISBN 3-7001-2677-8 [SUMMARY] [BUY]

Journal articles

Mavroudi, E. and Jöns, H. (2011) Video documentaries in the assessment of human geography field courses Journal of Geography in Higher Education, iFirstDOI:10.1080/03098265.2011.559578

Jöns, H. (2011) Transnational academic mobility and gender Globalisation, Societies and Education 9 (2), 183-209

Holloway, S.L., Hubbard, P., Jöns, H. and Pilmott-Wilson, H. (2010) Geographies of education and the significance of children, youth and families Progress in Human Geography 34 (5), 583-600

Jöns, H. (2009) ‘Brain circulation’ and transnational knowledge networks: Studying long-tem effects of academic mobility to Germany, 1954-2000 Global Networks 9 (3), 315-338

Jöns, H. (2008) Academic travel from Cambridge University and the formation of centres of knowledge, 1885-1954 Journal of Historical Geography 34 (2), 338-362

Hoyler, M. and Jöns, H. (2008) Kampf um Talente? Internationalisierung britischer Universitäten Geographische Rundschau 60 (6), 60-64

Heffernan, M. and Jöns, H. (2007) Degrees of influence: The politics of honorary degrees in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 1900-2000 Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy 45 (4), 389-416

Jöns, H. (2007) Transnational mobility and the spaces of knowledge production: A comparison of global patterns, motivations and collaborations in different academic fields Social Geography 2 (2), 97-114

Jöns, H. (2006) Dynamic hybrids and the geographies of technoscience: Discussing conceptual resources beyond the human/non-human binary Social and Cultural Geography 7 (4), 559-580

Freytag, T. and Jöns, H. (2005) Vision and the cultural in geography: A biographical interview with Denis Cosgrove Die Erde 136 (3), 205-216

Hoyler, M., Freytag, T. and Jöns, H. (2004) Technology, organization, territory: A biographical interview with Michael Storper Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 48 (1), 63-72

Contributions to edited works

Jöns, H. (2010) Centre of calculation, in Agnew, J.A. and Livingstone, D.N. (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Geographical Knowledge. London: Sage, 156-168. ISBN 9781412910811 [GOOGLE BOOKS]

Jöns, H., Livingstone, D.N. and Meusburger, P. (2010) Interdisciplinary geographies of science, in Meusburger, P., Livingstone, D.N. and Jöns, H. (eds) (2010) Geographies of Science. Dordrecht: Springer, ix-xvii. ISBN 978-90-481-8610-5 [READ ONLINE]

Hoyler, M. and Jöns, H. (2008) Global knowledge nodes and networks, in Johnson, C., Hu, R. and Abedin, S. (eds) Connecting Cities: Networks. Sydney: Metropolis, 124-151. ISBN 978-0-7347-5230-7 [PDF]

Jöns, H. (2006) Grenzenlos mobil? Anmerkungen zur Bedeutung und Strukturierung zirkulärer Mobilität in den Wissenschaften, in Kempter, K. and Meusburger, P. (eds) Bildung und Wissensgesellschaft. Heidelberg: Springer, 333-362. ISBN 3-540-29516-X [PDF]

Hoyler, M. and Jöns, H. (2005) Themenorte vernetzt gedacht: Reflexionen über iconoclashes und den Umgang mit Repräsentationen in der Geographie, in Flitner, M. and Lossau, J. (eds) Themenorte. Münster: LIT, 183-200. ISBN 3-8258-7466-4 [BUY]

Jöns, H. (2003) Mensch-Umwelt-Beziehungen aus einer erweiterten Akteursnetzwerk­perspektive, in Meusburger, P. and Schwan, T. (eds) Humanökologie: Ansätze zur Überwindung der Natur-Kultur-Dichotomie. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 101-137. ISBN 3-515-08377-4 [GOOGLE BOOKS]

Jöns, H. (2003) Von Menschen und Dingen: Konstruktiv-kritische Anmerkungen zum (a)symmetrischen Akteurskonzept der Akteursnetzwerktheorie, in Hasse, J. and Helbrecht, I. (eds) Menschenbilder in der Humangeographie. Oldenburg: BIS, 109-142. ISBN 3-8142-0826-9 [PDF]

Jöns, H. and Köchling-Dietrich, R. (2002) Interaktionszentren und Kontaktnetze im Mittelalter, in Institut für Länderkunde (ed.) Nationalatlas Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Bildung und Kultur. Heidelberg: Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, 144-147. ISBN 3-8274-0947-0 [BUY]

Hoyler, M., Freytag, T. and Jöns, H. (2002) Geographical traditions, science studies, and biography: A conversation with David N. Livingstone, in Science, Space and Hermeneutics. Hettner Lecture 2001. Heidelberg: University of Heidelberg, 77-98. ISBN 3-88570-505-2 [BUY]

Jöns, H. (2001) Foreign banks are branching out: Changing geographies of Hungarian banking, 1987-1999, in Meusburger, P. and Jöns, H. (eds) Transformations in Hungary: Essays in Economy and Society. Heidelberg: Physica, 65-124. ISBN 3-7908-1412-1 [GOOGLE BOOKS] [BUY]

List of all publications (PDF - updated July 2011)

Teaching

Year 1
Geographies of Global Economic Change

Year 2
Geographies of the Knowledge Economy (course convenor)
Researching Human Geographies (course convenor)
Urban Geography Fieldcourse - Paris

Year 3
Mediterranean Rural Spaces Fieldcourse - Central Crete

MSc
Globalization and Society (course convenor)

Administrative Responsibilities

Disability and Equality Co-ordinator

Joint/With Honours Programmes Liaison Officer

Co-director of the Loughborough Qualitative Digital Research Laboratory (LiQUiD Lab)

Professional Membership and Service

Editorial Board Member of the Journal Social Geography

Secretary, History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group (HPGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH)

Member of the Association of American Geographers (AAG)

Member of the Association of German University Geographers (VGDH)