IGU is delighted to announce that the IGU Lauréats d’honneur for the year 2020 conferred upon Professor Joos Drooglever-Fortuyn and Professor Yoshitaka Ishikawa.

Professor Joos Drooglever-Fortuyn has been a leading international scholar in European gender geography for many decades. Her institutional and intellectual contribution has been immense. Joos has served the IGU Gender Commission since 1992 including in the role of Chair (2000-2004), IGU Vice-President (2012-2016), and currently First Vice-President. She coordinated an Intensive Erasmus course on Gender and Geography (1990-1998) that included five different universities from five different European countries. This contributed hugely to cross-cultural development of the field. Joos’ research has been very innovative addressing topics such as dual earner families, ageing, and teaching.

Professor Yoshitaka Ishikawa has made remarkable contributions to the IGU by serving as secretary of the IGU Commission on “Global Change and Human Mobility” in 2000–2012 and as chair of the Organizing Committee of the 2013 Kyoto Regional Conference, which was highly successful. He is a leading Japanese population geographer, whose activities have extended to making public policy recommendations, and has also contributed to international geography through publishing many excellent books and papers on such research topics as internal/international migration and foreign residents as ethnic minorities.