Professor Emeritus Börje Johansson passed away in his home in Stockholm, Sweden, June 18, 2020, at the age of 74. Börje served as President of the European Regional Science Association 2000-2003. In 2013 he was awarded the EIB-ERSA Prize for his great contributions to regional science. From 1994 and 20 years onwards, he served as Editor for the Annals of Regional Science. He always stood out as a great beacon of regional science from the North.
Börje Johansson took his PhD in Economics at Gothenburg University 1978. 1982-1984 he was Acting Leader of the Integrated Regional & Urban Development Group (RUD) at IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria. 1985 he became Director of CERUM (Centre for Regional Science Research), University of Umeå. 1994 he was appointed Professor of Economics at JIBS (Jönköping International Business School), Jönköping, Sweden, a position that he kept until his retirement a few years ago. Börje also held positions as Professor in Economics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, and as Guest Professor in Infrastructure Economics at KTH, Stockholm, Sweden.
Börje’s research interests spanned over large areas of economics and regional science. He made important contributions to economic network theory and productivity analysis. He was an excellent teacher and fostered a new generation of PhD students wherever he was active. Börje also had an extraordinary ability to apply his theoretical knowledge to practical problems, and he had innumerable commissions for agencies and authorities at national and regional levels. He was always hard working and had an extraordinary scholarly and personal integrity combined with a terse sense of humour inherited from his family background in the coastal surroundings of Gothenburg.
Börje is mourned and missed by many colleagues and friends across the world, most of all by his children Eleanor, Eskil and Olof.
Hans Westlund Folke Snickars Charlie Karlsson
Professor Professor Emeritus Professor Emeritus