Director of CIRCLE (Center for Innovation, Research, Competence in the Learning Economy)CIRCLE is an interdisciplinary research center spanning several faculties at Lund University. CIRCLE was established in July 2004 with initial funding from VINNOVA (The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems), Lund University and the Ruben Rausing Foundation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In July 2006, CIRCLE was awarded a prestigious 10 year Linnaeus Grant by the Swedish Research Council as one of the first 20 milieus across all sciences and the only one in innovation research. This long term grant for basic research has been of strategic importance for CIRCLE’s development to become one of the leading research milieus in Europe within its area of study.In connection with VINNOVA’s call for a new round of funding of centers of excellence in 2010, innovation research centers in Sweden were evaluated by international peers. CIRCLE was ranked number one of nine innovation research centers and was given the highest grade available. The comment from the evaluators was “This is an internationally eminent group addressing the main questions at the leading edge of innovation systems/innovation policy research with potentially strong policy implications.” As a direct consequence of this evaluation, CIRCLE was awarded a six-year grant from VINNOVA, with matching funding from Lund University. In 2012 CIRCLE passed the mid-term evaluation of the Linnaeus Grant, of which the new organization of research activities into four research platforms was appreciated. The academic performance was also given an excellent rating.See for further information website: www.circle.lu.se

Boschma is head of a research group of about 15 researchers at the Department of Economic Geography that aims to work out conceptually and empirically the outlines of Evolutionary Economic Geography. He has widely published in international journals on Evolutionary Economic Geography, the spatial evolution of industries, regional systems of innovation, the structure and evolution of networks, agglomeration externalities and regional growth. Over the past 10 years, his research group has risen to international prominence as evolutionary economic strands of thinking have generated substantial interest in the international economic geography and innovation studies community. In the last assessment of urban and regional research in the Netherlands 2000-2006, the research program of the group was rated as excellent (score 4.65). Being ranked among the top programs in the Netherlands, it received high acclaims for being internationally well profiled, top quality publications that are visible and acknowledged on a global scale, high level productivity, addressing socially relevant issues, being very innovative in terms of approach, influencing international academic debate on a theoretical and policy level, and group coherence. The group has been very successful in the acquisition of external funding for new PhD and post-doc projects.Boschma has done research assignments for organizations like the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the European Commission DG Research, the European Science Foundation, the OECD and the Scientific Council for National Government (WRR). He has acquired research grants from the Dutch Scientific Council (NWO), EU Framework programs, the European Science Foundation, among others.He is Deputy Chief Editor of Regional Studies, member of the Editorial Board of Economic Geography and Editor of the working paper series Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography