Vladimir Kolosov

President of the International Geographical Union

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Political geography and geopolitics, electoral  geography, social geography, urban geography, world cities and large metropolitan areas, borders typology and communication, sociology methods in geography, geopolitical concepts, connection between social dynamics and international relations, unrecognized states.

Study areas: Northern Eurasia, Western  Europe, Post-Soviet states, Russia, Ukraine, Northern and Southern Caucasus, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, China etc.

Member of the Presidium of Russian Geographical Society

In 1993 Vladimir Kolosov created at the Institute the Centre (Laboratory) of Geopolitical Studies and is its Head. He was the principal investigator or headed the Russian part of 26 research projects supported by different Russian foundations, European Framework Programmes, CNRS (France), National Science Foundation (USA), Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli (Italy), Open Society Institute. A dozen of scholars in Russia and France prepared their PhD thesis and passed their habilitation under his tutorship. Professor Kolossov taught at Moscow State University and Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

He is the author of about 350 publications, including 110 works abroad and 6 individual monographs; he was the main author and editor of 11 books. Among his main works are: Political Geography: Problems and Methods (Leningrad, 1988), The Spring-89: The Geography and the Anatomy of Parliamentary elections (Moscow, 1990, with Nikolai Petrov and Leonid Smirnyagin), L’Atlas de la Russie et des pays proches (Paris, 1995, with Roger Brunet and Denis Eckert), The Geopolitical Situation of Russia: Representations and Reality (Moscow, 2000; an Italian version: Turin, 2001), The World in the Eyes of Russian Citizens: Myths and Foreign Policy (Moscow, 2003), Political Geography and Geopolitics (Moscow, 2001, 2005, with Nikolai Mironenko), etc.

Vladimir Kolosov acquired extensive experience of international scientific cooperation, teaching and research at foreign universities and laboratories. He obtained the scholarship of Brussels Capital Region (1991) and International Boundaries Research Unit (University of Durham, UK, 1992), the Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Colorado at Boulder (1997). In 1999-2003 Vladimir Kolosov was nominated as Professor at the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail (France). He was also visiting professor in the universities of Paris-Sorbonne IV, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Bordeaux, Le Havre and Tampere, and lectured in Ukrainian, Dutch, British, and American universities. He is on the editorial boards of Political Geography, Geopolitics, BelGéo, Eurasian Geography and Economy, Annales géographiques and other foreign and Russian academic journals. He is elected Foreign Member of French Geographical Society and Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Le Havre.

Since 1991 Vladimir Kolosov is involved in the activities of the International Geographical Union – first as a member and in 1996-2004 – as Chair of the Commission on Political Geography. In October 2006 he was elected Vice-President, in 2008 - First Vice-President of the International Geographical Union. At the 32d International Geographical Congress in Cologne (August 2012) he became President of IGU. He initiated, chaired or was a member of Organizing Committees of a great number of IGU workshops and conferences held in Russia, Ukraine, Italy and other countries. As a member of the Steering Committee he contributed to the programme of the International Year of Global Understanding initiated by IGU. He also contributed to a larger involvement of geographers from CIS countries in IGU activities and plays a leading role in the preparation of IGU Regional Conference in Moscow scheduled in 2015.