Prof Ivan Turok holds the Research Chair in City-Region Economies in the Department of Economics and Finance and the Centre for Development Support at the UFS. He has authored more than 160 peer-reviewed publications and 11 books/monographs and is one of the most highly cited social scientists in SA. He is ranked in the top 1% of global scientists by Stanford University and Clarivate Web of Science and ranked 42 out of 9 701 top global scientists within the specific field of urban and regional planning. He holds an NRF B1 rating and is the former Editor-in-Chief of the top international journal, Regional Studies.  He is also a Distinguished Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council and was the Chairman of the Durban City Planning Commission. He was formerly Professor of Urban Economic Development, and Director of Research: Department of Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. Prof Turok was also a Mellon Fellow at the University of Cape Town and Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Strathclyde. He is an occasional adviser to the United Nations, OECD, African Development Bank, UNECA, and several national governments. His recent books include Transitions in Regional Economic Development (2018, Routledge), Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa (2019, Springer), and Restoring the Core: Central City Decline and Transformation in the South (2020, Elsevier). He was a finalist for the NSTF Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.

He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Reading, UK.
 

Prof Justin Visagie is a Senior Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council, with a focus on urban economics, development economics, and applied microeconomic research. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of the Free State, supporting the DSI/NRF Chair in City-region Economies. He was previously Director of Economic Planning, Policy and Research in the Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the Eastern Cape. He completed his PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he won the prestigious Founders' Medal of the Economic Society of South Africa for his thesis on the development of the middle class in South Africa. Prof Visagie has expertise in microeconomic data analysis and has worked on a wide array of cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, while regularly producing numerous reports for local and international organisations such as the World Bank, International Science Council, UNU-WIDER, and National Treasury. His recent research projects have involved spatial administrative data mining, regional industrial policy, city-region economies, tradable services, spatial inequality, social mobility, urbanisation, housing, and migration.