Professor Emeritus Jim Walsh, D. Litt (NUI)

Maynooth University, Ireland

Department of Geography and Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, Ireland

Member of the Regional Studies Association from 1979.

Executive Committee of the Irish Branch in 1987

Chairman of the Ireland Branch between 1994-1998, member of the International Executive Committee 1993-1996

Organised  national conferences on behalf of the Irish Branch in 1990, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2002

Editor of publications on behalf of the RSA Irish Branch in 1991, 1995 and 1997 and was co-editor with Peter Roberts and David Shaw of Regional Planning and Development in Europe, Ashgate Press, 2000.

Regular participant and contributor RSA International conferences in 1990s and early 2000s

FERSA 2011, 2021

2022 Distinguished Service to Regional Studies Award.

My research was broadly in the fields of regional and local development, spatial planning, demographic change in Ireland, agriculture transitions. My research space was primarily rural Ireland.

I was also the national contact expert for the European Spatial Planning Observatory Network (ESPON) 2002-2006 and a member of three international research teams on ESPON projects. Simultaneously I was leader on two international projects on Local Development funded by the Interreg Programme.

I was actively involved in providing policy advice at the national level for initiatives such as the White Paper on Rural Development 1999, the National Spatial Strategy 2002-2020 (2002), the National Planning Framework: Ireland 2040 (2018).

I was also a member of the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas (2013-14) which produced a report that informed the preparation of Our Rural Future – National Policy for Rural Development 2021-2025

My academic career was disrupted during the years 2005 – 2019 when I Vice-President of Maynooth University – I was also Deputy President for 6 of those years. Nevertheless I remained active in research and participated in RSA conferences in Ireland during that time.

Following retirement in 2019, I completed a book on Income Distribution and Redistribution in Ireland: a Geographical Exploration (2023). It was described by Prof. Ron Martin as “a landmark contribution to the international literature on uneven regional and local development”. Later in 2024 it was shortlisted for the Geographical Society of Ireland Book of the Year award. The judges described it as a “profoundly geographical set of reflections on the important issues of inequality and the management of the economy by the state”