He studied the French and the American « technopoles » for his Ph.D dissertation, and therefore spent a year as a « research fellow » at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1991. His current research is foccussed on economic and urban geography. He has done extensive work on industrial development, urban growth and urban politics in the North american cities (especially in the United States). He was « visiting scolar » at the University of California at Berkeley during the summer of 2004. He also has participated to several research programs, such as « Programme Cité » on the aerospace industry in the european cities (for which he studied the British case). Recently, he has organized an international symposium on the cultural industries (september 2006 in Toulouse).