At the 36th RESER International Conference, a new awards is granted:
· Peter Daniels Award on Original Ideas: recognizes outstanding academic work that demonstrates exceptional originality, creativity, and innovative thinking.
The award honors Peter Daniels, a pioneering scholar in the field of services and economic geography. He taught for 33 years at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham and is widely known for his influential books and research on the role of services in economic development, innovation, and organizational transformation. A founding member of RESER, he served as its President from 1995 to 2001 and received the RESER Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 at the 19th RESER Conference in Budapest.
At the end of the 1990s, few researchers from any discipline considered that service activities, particularly those aimed at businesses, required specific design, significant investment, and a different management approach. Their ability to transform industrial production processes was often overlooked or even denied.
British geographer Peter Daniels was convinced of the value of this new idea. Together with a few French, Italian, and Spanish colleagues, he was one of the founders of RESER, which sought to bring together European researchers around the themes of service activity development.
The RESER Council is pleased to honour his memory by creating an award that will recognise the most innovative communication theme at the annual RESER conference.
