Five interconnected research lines organise Junyao He’s work. Complex networks and complex systems provide the shared analytical foundation. The empirical questions span economic geography, urban studies, mobility and migration, planning governance, and computational social science.
Hybrid work, job–home networks, and regional restructuring
Major active research line.
Remote and hybrid work change the spatial relationship between employment and residence. Junyao He examines job–home networks as the main unit of spatial organisation and traces changes in their reach, hierarchy, and distribution. This perspective addresses whether flexible work expands labour market reach, redistributes employment and residential centrality, alters the geography of opportunity, and produces different outcomes across urban and rural contexts. Current work uses Spanish mobility data to compare multiple levels of hybrid work intensity and Dutch longitudinal data to estimate causal and spatial spillover effects after the COVID 19 shock. Related research examines how remote work exposure interacts with housing markets, relocation, and regional inequality.
Representative work
- Teleworkability and the Evolution of Job–Home Networks after the COVID-19 Shock: Causal Evidence from the Netherlands
- Hybrid Work and Job–Home Networks
Mobility, migration, and uneven spatial opportunity
Major active research line.
Mobility is relational. Cities and regions are shaped by the origins, destinations, volumes, and composition of the flows connecting them. Junyao He uses network approaches to study residential relocation, interregional migration, digital nomad mobility, and changing access to employment and urban opportunity. A central question concerns the uneven distribution of opportunity under new mobility regimes. Remote workers, digitally mobile professionals, and different demographic groups may respond differently to the same spatial conditions. Layered mobility networks make these heterogeneous responses visible.
Representative work
- Different Strokes for Different Folks: Heterogeneity, Teleworkability, and the Restructuring of Dutch Internal Migration Networks
- Revealing the Global Mobility and Driving Forces of Digital Nomads through Network Analysis and Interpretable Machine Learning
- MOBI-TWIN D3.4: The Effects of Spatial Mobility during Twin Transition on Regional Inequality and Sustainability in the Identified EU Regional Typologies
Digital planning, platform governance, and networked power
Established research line.
Digital platforms have become important arenas for planning participation, controversy, and legitimacy. Junyao He’s doctoral research examined how social media reshapes interaction networks, discursive influence, and power inequalities in collaborative planning in China. This work develops network based approaches to power that connect interaction structure with discourse, framing, and institutional authority. It examines how citizens, third parties, journalists, experts, and public authorities translate online visibility into influence over planning processes. Current co authored work extends this agenda to the institutionalisation and governance of urban AI in China and Europe.
Representative work
- Measuring Social Network Influence on Power Relations in Collaborative Planning: A Case Study of Beijing City, China
- Informal Participation in Digital Planning: How Can Third Parties Use Social Media to Shift Power Relations in Planning?
- Social Media Influence on Collaborative Planning: Framing Strategies in Online Public Participation
- Social Media Influence on Citizen Power in Online Planning Controversies: An Edge-based Social Network Analysis of Network Power
- Institutionalizing AI in Urban Planning: Discursive AI Opportunity Structures in China
AI, innovation, and computational economic geography
Emerging research line.
AI and digital transformation are reshaping regional economies. Patents, firms, and administrative units capture only part of this geography. Junyao He is developing relational approaches that use large scale news text to identify cooperation, competition, innovation, and attention networks across subnational regions. This line connects GeoAI, graph based modelling, natural language processing, and interpretable machine learning with debates on regional capabilities, technological transitions, and uneven development. Related co authored work examines regional cognitive composition under the green and digital transitions and applies visual Large Language Models to urban environmental and crime data.
Representative work
- Measuring AI-Related Cooperation, Competition, and Innovation across Global Subnational Regions Using News Text
- Beyond structural explanations: Cognitive composition and regional trajectories under the green and digital transitions
- Toward a Discursive Algorithmic Opportunity Structure Framework: Governing Urban AI in Europe
Complex networks and complex systems methods
Cross cutting methodological line.
Across these empirical fields, Junyao He treats cities, regions, mobility systems, and digital public spheres as complex relational systems. The methodological agenda combines network measurement with spatial dependence, causal inference, simulation, and interpretable prediction. Current methods include multilayer and temporal networks, directed centrality, community structure, entropy based reach, spatial interaction models, spatial difference in differences, Bartik designs, agent based modelling, spatial microsimulation, and large scale text derived networks.
Representative work
- 3D Walking Network Shapes Social Cohesion of the Elderly in Aging Communities: Evidence from Nanjing, China
- MOBI-TWIN D3.1: Methodological Report Describing the MOBI-TWIN Model
See also Methods and analytical approaches and Complex networks as a shared framework.
Collaboration
Junyao He welcomes collaboration on complex networks, spatial mobility, remote work, migration, economic geography, digital planning, and computational urban research. Enquiries concerning papers, data, or research collaboration can be sent to J.HE@RUG.NL or junyaohe.utrecht@gmail.com .