22 October Issue – Nr 11     ERSA2019 Call for Special Session proposals is OPEN   After a very successful Congress in Cork last August, it is already time to move forward next year’s Congress in Lyon. The Local Organising Committee is happy to announce that the Call for Special Session proposals starts today.   Special Sessions are added value to our Congress and their input surely contribute to making our Congress the largest academic event in regional science worldwide.   The Special Sessions address specific and topical themes in Regional Science. This year the LOC also calls for a Congress programme with a stronger interdisciplinary dimension including contributions from social sciences, engineering and big data.   Deadline December 7, 2018. We invite you to share this call to your colleagues and friends.   Save the date: The Call for abstracts starts on December 10th.   Congress website   4th ERSA-REGIO Academic Lecture 2018   Registration is OPEN Lecturer: Alessandra Faggian, Professor in Applied Economics, Gran Sasso Science Institute in L’Aquila, Italy   Presentation title: Human capital migration and regional development: some reflections   Discussant: Jaako Simonen, University of Oulu, Finland.   Date and venue: 19 November 2018, DG REGIO, Brussels, Belgium more   Back to our participation in the University programme of EURegionsWeek   In addition to our involvement in the 6th Master Class targeting PhD students and early-career researchers who had this unique opportunity to improve their understanding of EU Cohesion Policy and its research potential, ERSA was also co-organiser of two hot topic University workshops. Our two university sessions were both well attended (each of them gathering over 80 participants) and generated some stimulating discussion. In collaboration with our partners, we brought together eminent scholars and experts in the fields of migration issues and cohesion policy. Nota bene: The final report on these sessions and the speakers’ presentations will be shortly available on the EURegionsWeek website as well on ERSA website. If you are interested by these two topics, we invite you to stay tuned for more info via our social media platforms or enews.   University Session: #migration #asylumseekers #refugees #regional and economic development Following the knowledge of the session and debates among speakers and participants, Dimitris Ballas says that there is a great potential and opportunity for European cities and regions to successfully address the challenge of hosting and integrating asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants. Apart from the humanitarian imperative, there is a very strong economic case to be made for a successful integration of all migrants.   Nb: The graph shows ‘three words mostly associated with the #refugee #crisis ‘ @Mentimeter audience generated #wordCloud‘ from the participants of the session   Moderator: Dimitris Ballas (co-organiser) Speakers: Roger Casale, Nicholas Wise, Alessandra Faggian (co-organiser), Andrés Rodriguez-Pose Organisers: European Commission/DG REGIO, European Regional Science Association (ERSA), Regional Studies Association (RSA)   Learn more on the debate generated by the session on twitter @Ersa_Org   See here the official photos of our session published by EURegionsWeek   University Session – 30 years of EU #cohesion policy   The session started with a strong input from Riccardo Crescenzi and the keynote speech of Vassilis Monastiriotis who caught the attention of the audience by raising new questions and explaining clearly evidences about EU cohesion policy in time. From different perspectives and based on consistent research results, the speakers and panelists highlighted that we are able to improve regional policies, better understand needs to focus on, i.e building synergies across #policy instruments, targeting #funds.   Moderator: Riccardo Crescenzi (co-organiser) Speakers: Lewis Dijkstra, Enrique Garcilazo, Thomas Farole, Ugo Fratesi (co-organiser), Dosso Mafini, Vassilis Monastiriotis (co-organiser), Laura Polverani Organisers: European Commission/DG REGIO, European Regional Science Association (ERSA), Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP)   Learn more on the debate generated by the session on twitter @Ersa_Org   See here the official photos of our session published by EURegionsWeek   6th Master Class on EU Cohesion Policy A new rich and successful edition! 84 % of participants found the programme very important for their professional development.   30 PhD smart students and early career researchers from 13 EU Member States and two non-EU countries have been selected to attend the 2018 Master Class. Their intense week programme included debates with Officials of the European Commission, paper presentations with feedback from scholars and EU experts, insights into the European Parliamentary Research Service more   To Keep up-to-date with all events on the agenda, visit our upcoming events page on our website.