He is known for establishing, with Evan Jones, Gavan Butler, Margaret Power, Debesh Bhattacharya, Geelum Simpson-Lee and Ted Wheelwright, an independent political economy department at the University of Sydney.
[3] His research interests include theories of political economy, inequality, urbanization, and regional development, Australian economic policy and the nature of work.
Locally, in Sydney, the Green Bans movement showed the capacity for a range of actors, from community activists and trade unionists to coalitions across them, to challenge the dominant power structures.
Colin Simkin and Warren Hogan were appointed as professors to the Sydney University economics department in 1968–1969 to 'modernise' the program, making the courses more neoclassical theory-heavy, and mathematical.
Several of the academics hired by Hogan and Simkin subsequently aligned themselves with Wheelwright, including: Debesh Bhattacharya, Gavan Butler, Frank Stilwell and Evan Jones.
Meetings of students and dissident staff also decided on the curriculum that they sought, with a pluralist structure combining a range of insights from heterodox economic thought.
The Faculty of Economics responded by setting up an official inquiry into the ongoing dispute, chaired by Pat Mills, a Reader in the Department of Accounting.
The university's Professorial Board, seeking an end to the turmoil on campus, officially accepted the new Political Economy course proposals, to start in 1975, but the Vice chancellor, Bruce Williams, declined to create a separate department.
In April 1975, Professor Joan Robinson from Cambridge, UK, visited the University of Sydney and spoke at the Wallace Lecture Theatre, arguing that political economy is a better basis for studying economic issues.
It stayed there for over three weeks, staffed day and night by political economy students such as Stephen Yen, Maria Barac and Paul Porteous.
Then, on 20 June, student activists blocked the entrance to the Professorial Boardroom, where a meeting was scheduled to consider what the university should do about course restructuring within the Department of Economics.
After the students were prevailed upon to withdraw and the meeting began half an hour late, some of the protesters then climbed onto the roof of the cloisters outside, continuing to interrupt proceedings.
University authorities initiated disciplinary proceedings against six of the activists: David Re, Adam Rorris, Tony Westmore, Daniel Luscombe, Chris Gration and Anthony Albanese.
[13] From 1996 onwards, the Australian government led by John Howard dramatically cut all universities' funding, forcing them to vigorously seek alternative revenue sources.
The recommendations were accepted by the university's Academic Board, although the Provost, Don Nutbeam, decided that the new school's name should be changed to Social and Political Sciences to accommodate the preference of the staff in Government and International Relations.
In 2011, students and staff of political economy successfully prevented a merger with Government and International Relations, retaining their department's independence.
Stilwell also co-edited books with Kirrily Jordan, Stuart Rees, George Argyrous, Damien Cahill, David Primrose and Tim Thornton.
Stilwell published 'Understanding Cities and Regions' in 1994, developing the theoretical foundations for spatial political economy, a significant advance over mainstream and orthodox urban economics.
Taking inspiration from the work of David Harvey and Manuel Castells, and critically extending schools of thought such as original institutional economics, Stilwell suggests that geography and political economy, together, are capable of explaining processes of urbanisation.
[22] Stilwell's contribution is thus to integrate these concerns into broader discussions of space and place related to the 'urban question': ""how and why does the size and structure of cities interact with the functioning of the economy and society?
Together, these analytical fields, coupled with the theoretical considerations of Understanding Cities and Regions, form the foundations of the distinct epistemology of spatial political economy.
With a lecturing career at the University of Sydney spanning more than 40 years, many of Frank Stilwell's students have come to occupy prominent positions in Australian public life.
In politics and public life more broadly, these include the following: Mark Latham, Anthony Albanese, Greg Combet, Carmel Tebbutt, Michael Costa, Morris Iemma, Peter Kell (ASIC), Many members of parliament (MPs) were also taught by Stilwell.
Among this long list of MPs are the following: Pat Conroy, Jenny McAlister, John Graham, Anthony D'Adam, Paul Lynch, Greg Combet and Robert Tickner, and professors Rod O'Donnell, Ann Harding, Steve Keen, Terry Flew, Margaret Gardner, and Clive Hamilton.
In Journalism: Stephen Long, Eleanor Hall, Jessica Irvine, Steve Cannane, Peter Martin, Clancy Yeates, and Michael Janda.