We would like to congratulate Paul Parker, recipient of the Economic Developers Council of Ontario (EDCO) President's Award!
Paul Parker is a Professor from the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) and the Department of Geography and Environmental Management (GEM) at the University of Waterloo.
Last Wednesday at the EDCO 2019 annual conference, Paul received the President's Award in recognition of his contribution to graduate studies and professional training.
The award is presented to "leaders in economic development". For Paul, the recognition is for his contributions as the Director of the University of Waterloo's Economic Development Program over the past decade, and as a professor in the Master of Economic Development and Innovation program for more than 20 years.
"I feel that the award recognizes our strong University of Waterloo team; its research capacity, teaching insights and the excellent relationship that Waterloo has maintained with the economic development profession in Ontario and across Canada," says Professor Parker.
Economic Development Program courses reach 300 professionals anually from communities of all sizes, and the master’s program builds the economic, environmental and social science skill set of 20 graduate students. The deliberate integration of theory and practical case studies is highly valued and 90% of participants rated the courses as very good or excellent over the last two years. His team posts many of the resulting research papers in their online journal, Papers in Canadian Economic Development, and shorter blog posts on the Higher ED blog.