Bryn Greer-Wootten
Bryn Greer-Wootten, York University professor emeritus and associate director of the Institute for Social Research, has been recognized for his work with the Institute of Geonics by the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Greer-Wootten was presented with the prestigious Karel Engliš Honorary Medal for Merit in the Social and Economic Sciences on Aug. 28 by Professor Eva Zažímalová, president of the academy, during a ceremony held at the Villa Lőw Beer in Brno, Czech Republic.
This medal was established by the Academic Council of the Academy in 1995 for outstanding contributions by Czech and foreign scholars in the social and economic sciences.
Greer-Wootten first visited Czechoslovakia (as it was then) in 1978 as an interested tourist. His first research work was for a sabbatical leave fellowship in 1997, in which he evaluated the ecological impacts of nuclear power facilities in a comparative analysis of Canada, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. Greer-Wootten was appointed as visiting scientist for 2002-03 for his final sabbatical leave project on “Sustainability in the Transitional Economies of East Central Europe.” At the end of this project, he was invited to join the editorial board of the Moravian Geographical Reports (MGR), an international general geographical journal that had been evaluated in the Scopus system since its first volume in 1993. In 2009, he was invited to become editor-in-chief, a position he has held since that time.
Professor Eva Zažímalová, president of the Czech Academy of Sciences, presents York University Professor Emeritus Bryn Greer-Wootten with the academy's Karel Engliš Honorary Medal for Merit in the Social and Economic Sciences
As editor-in-chief, Greer-Wootten has been strongly supported by an editorial team in Brno, especially by Executive Editor Bohumil Frantal. The MGR was accepted into the Web of Science system in 2012, and now has an impact factor of 1.435 (5-year IF: 1.5) and the ranking of 47 out of 84 with respect to geography journals.
Greer-Wootten’s institutional appointments in the Institute of Geonics include his membership on the international advisory board since 2006. His work has also included his appointment as: external evaluator; international expert for review of the Institute of Geonics for the Czech Academy of Sciences in January, 2011; as well as a more extended period (2014-15) when he was appointed as a member of the Czech Academy of Science Review Committee: external evaluator, International Expert for Review of the Institute of Geonics, Czech Academy of Sciences.
Throughout these various activities with the academy, Greer-Wootten has worked in close collaboration with his wife, Mirka Ondrack, statistical consultant emerita at the Institute for Social Research. Their joint work in the Department of Environmental Geography might have been described initially (in the 1990s) as a "rescue mission," bringing younger scientists at the institute up to date with respect to modern research design and analytical possibilities in the social sciences.