Concept
Henry Bakis is professor emeritus of geography at the University of Montpellier. His research has mainly focused on industry, firms and ICT geography (information and communications technologies). One of his primary interests has been considering the articulation and the effects of electronic communication networks on territories and social networks. Bakis plays an active role in the International Geographical Union commission dedicated to ICT: executive secretary, chairman or vice-chair of the commissions dedicated to ICT (1985 - 2016). He founded and edited the Communication Newsletter Geography (1985 - 2000) and the journal Netcom (1987) on communication and territories. Bakis was a researcher at the French CNET from 1978 to 1995. He was associated research director at Paris-Sorbonne University from 1991 to 1996; and professor of economic geography at the University of Montpellier (1996-2015). During the 1970s Bakis studied the consequences of industrial policies, industrial subcontracting and multinational firms activities in the French regions (IBM Case study). He then turned his attention to telecommunications networks of large enterprises first from the IBM case. More generally, the relationship between organizations, network technologies and geographical space are the center of his analysis. He "has contributed greatly to promote this approach of the geography, both within French geographers as within the International Geographical Union.". Since the end of the 1970s Bakis calls for the study of telecommunications, ICT systems and digital network technologies from the geographical point of view. He "did pioneering work through important scientific production". For Bakis, telecommunications is "one of the levers of regional planning to open up the territories, improve economic performance, and allow various forms of teleactivities, a new connection between the local and the global level". He worked on the digital development of territories following the development of the Internet and digital infrastructures.
