Significant Advances in Applied Geography from Combining Curiosity-Driven and Client-Driven Research Methodologies

The central thesis of the 2005 Anderson Lecture is that significant achievements in applied geography occur when the principles and practices of curiosity-driven and client-driven research are combined in the statement of problem, the idealized and operational research design, and the procedures of evaluating results. A companion thesis extends the Anderson Lectures by Jack Dangermond, Brian Berry, and Tom Wilbanks by positing that the best of applied geography incorporates a commutative perspective when establishing the parameters of an inquiry. That is, using pairwise combinations for illustration, research study parameters such as epistemology-praxis, conceptual-empirical, spatial-aspatial, theoryhypothesis, method-technique, cause-effect, analysis-synthesis, and structure-function are necessary elements in applied research that validates geography as a science-based, societally-relevant discipline, and geographers as professional practitioners. The examples of remote sensing, optimization techniques, decision support systems, geographic information systems, and the Walking Security Index project are used to illustrate how significant advances in applied geography result from combining curiosity-driven and client-driven research methodologies.