Gilles Paquet was born in Quebec City in 1936. His undergraduate studies at Laval were in philosophy and social sciences. Then, he studied economics at the graduate level at Laval, Queen's (Canada) and at the University of California, where he was Postdoctoral Fellow in Economics. He taught economics at Carleton University for some 18 years, and then economics and public management at the University of Ottawa since 1981. He was Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at Carleton in the 1970s and Dean of the Faculty of Administration at the University of Ottawa in the 1980s. At the end of 1997, he was appointed Director of the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa.
Gilles Paquet has authored/co-authored or edited more than 25 books and written over 250 papers or chapters in books on issues ranging from economic history of Canada, regional and industrial development, knowledge production and management, trade and technology, governance, entrepreneurship and public management. He was Editor in Chief of OPTIMUM from 1994 to 2000.
He has been president of the Social Sciences Federation of Canada and of a large number of other Canadian associations, including La Société canadienne de science économique and l'Association des Economistes Québécois. He was Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Economics Association from 1967 to 1981.
Gilles Paquet is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of Arts of London. He received in 1982 the Jacques-Rousseau Medal in recognition of important contributions of a multidisciplinary nature and the Esdras-Minville Medal in 1989 for the corpus of his works in social sciences. In 1993, he received the Award for Excellence in Research at the University of Ottawa.
Between 1978 and 1991, he was a regular interviewer/ commentator/ animateur on the national radio or television network of Radio-Canada. Between 1992 and 1997, he was an editorial writer for Le Droit. Since 1997, he has been a member of STUDIO 2 weekly panel on national affairs on TV Ontario.
Gilles Paquet was named Member of the Order of Canada in 1992.
