Peter J. Warrian is Senior Research Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. He is Canada’s leading academic expert on the steel industry. His current research is on knowledge networks, supply chains and engineering labour markets. He has been a member of the Innovation Systems Research Network (ISRN), funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He was a co-investigator on two Major Collaborative Research Initiatives, the first on Innovation Systems and Economic Development: The Role of Local and Regional Clusters in Canada and currently on the Social Dynamics of Economic Performance: Innovation and Creativity in City Regions which ran from 2006 to 2011. He is the author or co-author of five books and numerous scholarly articles. In 2010 he published The Importance of Steel Manufacturing in Canada from the Munk School of Global Affairs. In 2012 he published A Profile of the Steel Industry: Global Re-Invention for a New Economy from Business Expert Press.
He holds a PhD in History from the University of Waterloo and is a graduate of the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was formerly Research Director of the United Steelworkers of America. From 1992-94 he was Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance and Chief Economist of the Province of Ontario. He has served as a technical consultant to the International Steel Committee of the OECD, Paris. He was the Executive Director of the Canadian Steel Trade and Employment Congress. He was a member of the Task Force to Review the Definition of the Poverty Line of the Canadian Council on Social Development. He is a Founding Member of the Industry Studies Association. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Public Sector Productivity Review. He chaired the Health Training and Adjustment Panel of the Province of Ontario. He has been an economic consultant for 20 years working with business, government and labour clients in the areas of labour market analysis, training needs assessments and industry studies. He has been a member of the Board of Governors of two Canadian universities.