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Alain-G. Gagnon, FRSC
RSC Council | RSC President
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Year of Induction: 
2008
Mandate: 
2022-2025

BIOGRAPHY

A graduate from the Université du Québec à Rimouski, Simon Fraser University and Carleton University, Professor Alain-G. Gagnon has been contributing to debates on the organization and future of small societies and minority nations for forty years. His multidisciplinary work spans a range of analytical fields, from regional development to the sociology of intellectuals, from political economy to federalism and nationalism. From 1982 to 2003, he taught at Queen's, Carleton and McGill universities before joining UQAM in 2003 as Canada Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian Studies. He was a visiting professor at Science Po Paris, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Carlos III Madrid, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Institut d'études politiques de Bordeaux.

He has distinguished himself by developing important research infrastructures. He is the founding director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Diversity and Democracy (CRIDAQ), the Research Group on Plurinational Societies (GRSP) and the new Centre for Policy Analysis: Constitution - Federalism (CAPCF). He is currently a Vice-President of the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies (IACFS).

At the RSC, he served as Director of the Francophone Division of the Academy of Social Sciences (2010-2012), before assuming the position of President (2017-2019). He has also served on several committees including the Awards Committee.

Translated into some twenty languages, his work has earned him several distinctions, including the Prix Marcel-Vincent from the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS, 2007), the 2008 Award of Excellence and the 2019 Teaching Award from the Société québécoise de science politique, the Governor General's International Award in Canadian Studies (2016), the Ordre de Pléiade (Ordre de la francophonie et du dialogue des cultures) (2018), and the Mildred A. Schwartz Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association (2020). He was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada in 2019 and Member of the Order of Quebec in 2022.