Research seminar on offshore services in Asia, 25-26 April 2013

Professor Neil Coe and I were invited participants at a research seminar on ‘Creating and capturing value in the next wave of globalization: experiences in (offshore) services production from India, East Asia and Southeast Asia’, organised by the University of Amsterdam and Kasetsart University. This was held in Bangkok, Thailand, 25-26 April 2013.

We were also hosted to dinner by the Dutch Ambassador at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bangkok. Thanks to Niels Beerepoot and Bart Lambregt for the invitation and for bringing together scholars working on and based in Asia.

NUS Postdoctoral Fellowship in Urban and Economic Geography

Invitation to Apply

The Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore has launched a scheme called Postdoctoral Fellowships (Teaching) whereby appointees are required to provide teaching support for the department.  Part of the postdoctoral fellowship will also provide time for publishing and/or research.

Area of Expertise

Postdoctoral Fellowship (Teaching)

The successful candidate will be someone who holds a PhD degree or is awaiting conferment (the PhD must be awarded by the time that the post is taken up).  Candidates should be able to teach in the areas of urban and economic geography.

More information on the modules offered by the Department of Geography can be found at http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/geog/

Terms and Conditions

The terms and conditions for the Postdoctoral Fellowship (PDF) (Teaching) are as follows:

1.     Contract to be awarded for 24 months, starting no later than 1st August 2013.

2.     An Annual Base Salary of up to S$66,000 per year.

3.     An allowance of S$500 a month as contribution towards housing expenses for non-citizens (i.e. non-Singaporeans) and their spouses who do not own any property in Singapore and whose spouses are not in receipt of any form of housing benefits from their Singapore employers.

4.     Singapore citizens and permanent residents are eligible for provident fund benefits.

5.     Travel Assistance, payable once only, as follows.

·       $2,000 for the Postdoctoral Fellow

·       $2,000 for spouse

·       $1,000 for each eligible child, subject to a maximum of 3 children.  Children must be less than 18 years of age and receiving full-time education.

The above travel assistance is a contribution towards expenses incurred by the appointee and his/her dependants in re-locating to Singapore. Such expenses refer to costs for travel, packing, transportation and insurance of personal and professional effects as well as settling-in expenses.

The travel allowance is contingent upon the Postdoctoral Fellow’s completion of his/her contract. In the event that the appointee does not fulfill the contract, the appointee shall be liable to refund the University a proportionate amount of the travel assistance granted to him/her and his/her dependants on appointment.

6.     Foreign PDFs who are granted Singapore Permanent Residence will continue to receive an allowance of S$500 a month as contribution towards housing expenses.  The allowance will cease if they acquire Singapore citizenship.

7.     Medical benefits in accordance with the Medical Benefit Plan.

8.     Formal vacation leave of 28 days per calendar year.

9.     The balance of time spent between research and teaching for each PDF is about 50-50. The PDF can expect to teach up to 1.5 modules per academic year.

Application

All applications, including a covering letter detailing research interests, publication track record and plans, and areas of teaching expertise, as well a CV and the names of two academic referees, should be submitted by 15th April 2013. The search will continue until an appointment is made. Please address and submit documents to:

Search Committee

Postdoctoral Fellowships (Teaching)

Department of Geography

National University of Singapore

1 Arts Link
Singapore 117570

Email correspondence and attachments should be sent to: geowlw@nus.edu.sg. Informal enquiries to: Associate Professor Tim Bunnell (Chair of Search Committee: geotgb@nus.edu.sg) or Professor Neil Coe (Head of Dept.: geohead@nus.edu.sg).

Visit our websites at http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/ for information on the Faculty, and http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/geog/ for information on the Department of Geography and the undergraduate modules on offer.

Keynote lecture at MOE Social Studies Seminar 2013

I will be delivering a keynote lecture at the MOE Social Studies Seminar (along with Associate Professor Shandre M. Thangavelu, Department of Economics, NUS), on the topic of Singapore’s economic development. This is an invitation-only event for MOE teachers.

* * *
Social Studies Symposium
Revisiting Singapore’s Strategies for
Economic Development in a Globalising World

Venue: St Gabriel’s Secondary School
24 Serangoon Avenue 1
Singapore 556140

Date: 19 April 2013 (Friday)
Time: 2.30 – 5.00pm
Registration: 2.00pm

Keynote address: Dr Karen Lai (Geography, National University of Singapore)

Manufacturing and services as twin engines of growth: petrochemicals cluster and financial services

Since the early-2000s, Singapore has placed increasing emphasis on developing financial services and R&D capabilities in Singapore. While this shift from manufacturing to service-based economic activities reflects effort to remain relevant and competitive in the global economy, there continues to be a strong commitment to maintaining manufacturing activities (that are high value-added) as a pillar of Singapore’s long term economic growth, alongside the growing service sector. This talk will highlight two case studies of the petrochemicals cluster and financial services in Singapore. Issues such as urban development, agglomeration economies, knowledge-based economy, environmental management and security will be discussed in relation to the challenges of changing global environments.

EAI seminar: Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing in China’s financial centre network (22 March 2013)

EAI Seminar

Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing in China’s financial centre network

上海, 北京和香港在中国的金融中心网络

Dr Karen Lai 黎碧瑶
(Department of Geography, National University of Singapore)

22 March 2013, 3:30pm-5:00pm

EAI Conference Room
NUS Bukit Timah Campus
469A Bukit Timah Road
Tower Block #06-01
Singapore 259770

Abstract:

Applying a network approach to the question of competition between Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing reveals distinctive spatial differentiation in the operational structures and business strategies of foreign banks in China. Contrary to popular conceptions of financial centre rivalry, these inter-city relations demonstrate a complex mix of competition and collaboration. Empirical findings indicate differentiated markets leading to the distinctive development of Shanghai as a commercial centre, Beijing as a political centre, and Hong Kong as an offshore financial centre, with all three financial centres performing distinctive and complementary roles within the regional banking strategies of foreign banks. This explains, firstly, Hong Kong’s continued dominance in the region and, secondly, reveals insights into changing inter-city relationships between these prominent Chinese cities as they develop into different types of financial centres.

BES Seminar on ‘Environment and Development in Africa’

NUS Bachelor of Environmental Studies (BES) Seminar Series

ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

Hosted by:Dr Joanna Coleman, BES Lecturer

Speaker: Prof David Taylor (Geography, NUS)

Date: 25 January 2013, Friday

Time: 6:30pm – 8:00pm

Venue: National University of Singapore, Faculty of Science, Blk S16, Level 3, Lecture Theatre 31

More details are in the poster below.

BES Seminar Series – Environment and Development in Africa 25 Jan 2013

Students need to register via the URL below. NUS faculty members need not register.
https://adhoc.science.nus.edu.sg/perl/workshop_reg/bes13/index.pl 

CFP: Integrating finance into Global Production Networks (RGS-IBG 2013)

Call for papers: RGS-IBG Annual Conference, London, 28-30th August 2013

Session title: Integrating finance into Global Production Networks

Organisers: Neil M. Coe (National University of Singapore), Karen Lai (National University of Singapore) and Dariusz Wójcik (Oxford University).

First coined in 2002, the Global Production Network (GPN) approach has inspired a large body of literature, with several special issues of journals in geography, regional studies, and beyond. One major contribution of GPN research has been to ‘globalise’ regional development, viewing ‘the region’ as a porous territorial formation whose boundaries are transcended by a broad range of network connections. For all its success, however, the GPN approach has arguably failed to account for the role of finance – financial actors, markets, and practices – in the dynamics of the global economy and regional development. This lacuna is significant as finance is arguably even more globalised and networked than production. Finance is crucial to the GPN approach; no GPN can function without financing and financial logics permeate the entire operations of GPNs. Moreover, understanding finance is indispensable to empirical studies of GPN, especially with regards to developing measures of value creation, capture and transfer. These are core conceptual components of the GPN framework, and yet have not been fully grappled with or elucidated empirically. Integrating finance into GPN requires more than a simple extension of the GPN approach; it would also enrich it conceptually, and enable it methodologically and empirically.

The objective of this session is to bring financial geographers and geographers interested in the globalisation of production together to foster a discussion on how to integrate finance into GPN. This is a challenging task, but offers an opportunity to develop a common framework to understand the interplay and impacts of the two most important phenomena of the last 40 years – globalisation and financialisation. We welcome papers that address (but are not limited to) the following issues:

• the networked nature of global finance and its relationship to GPNs;
• the role of financial centres and offshore finance in GPNs;
• equity and debt as sources of funds for GPNs and their implications for regional development;
• the role of finance (broadly conceived to include advanced business services e.g. accounting, law, business consultancy) in the globalisation processes of GPNs;
• finance as a driver of GPN structures and strategies;
• financialisation of GPNs;
• measuring value creation, enhancement, capture and transfer in GPNs;
• corporate and macroeconomic accounting as sources of data for integrating finance into GPN.

Papers on other relevant topics are welcome as well. Please send abstracts (max 250 words) and other enquiries to Karen Lai (karenlai@nus.edu.sg) by Friday 1st February 2013.

Course information for GE1101E (Semester 2, 2012/2013)

Associate Professor Alan Ziegler and I will be teaching GE1101E/GEK1001 Place in the coming semester (Semester 2, 2012/2013).

This module is currently under review with the objective of highlighting the relevance and attractiveness of a geographical perspective to world issues. Dr Ziegler and I are updating the course material with an emphasis on contemporary issues, integrating human and physical geography approaches and the challenges of globalisation and global environmental change. Whether you are a first year undergraduate intending to to major in Geography or a cross faculty student looking for a general education module with contemporary relevance, we believe this module will equip you with important skills to better able to understand the world and all its complexities in a holistic way.

More details on the module are available here and on the IVLE course webpage.