Dear ERSA members, colleagues and friends,

The last five years as President of ERSA I have experienced that the fundamental strength of ERSA lies in its members and its twenty very active sections. This resulted in the very successful annual congresses attracting 700-800 participants and each year summer- and a winter schools for PhD’s and young researchers. During my presidency it was a great pleasure to participate in a great number of very lively and well attended regional events organised by the ERSA sections. A new and emerging trend are meetings jointly organized by combinations of sections attracting also international scholars and fostering a vibrant regional science community both at the European and section level. ERSA developed strong relations with institutions like the European Commission (i.e. ERSA-DG REGIO Lectures series, University Workshops and Master Classes at the annual Week of Regions and Cities) and the OECD (i.e. the upcoming Winter School). We can say that we succeeded in positioning our Association as a key point of interaction with these institutions, which is of utmost importance to enhance the science-policy interaction, leading to higher societal relevance of regional science research and increasing impact of evidence based regional policies. Also our Open Access journal REGION, first published in 2014, is developing very well.

Looking back, it was a great honour and pleasure for me to serve for five years as ERSA President. ERSA is in very good shape, also financially, and I am sure that under the leadership of André Torre’s as new President, ERSA will continue to develop its prominent role in the regional science community. I like to offer him my full support and wish him a lot of success in this new endeavours.

I take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and healthy new year and look forward to meet you all again in 2019 at one of the events of ERSA and its sections.

Jouke van Dijk

ERSA President 2014-2018

The Call for Application is OPEN

We are are happy to launch the Call for Application of the 32nd edition of our Summer School, co-organized by ERSA Polish Section and the University of Katowice, Poland.

Target: PhD students and junior researchers with less than 10 years of research experience.

Call for Application Deadline: 8 March 2019. more

Highlight on the Invited professors to provide ex-cathedra lectures

Ron Boschma, Utrecht University, The Netherlands ; Andrea Caragliu, Politecnico di Milano, Italy ; Chiara del Bo Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy; Leila Kebir, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland; Stefan Rehak, University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovak Republic; André Torre, University Paris Saclay, INRA-Agroparistech, France;

Eveline van Leeuwen, Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands

REGION, the online and open access journal of ERSA

We welcome submissions for two special issues. The first explores the role of Institutes of Higher Education in the sustainable development of regions (contact: Rüdiger Hamm, ruediger.hamm@hs-niederrhein.de) and the second special issue will explore new forms of territorial development through collective action, commons and commoning (contact: Artur Ochojski, artur.ochojski@ue.katowice.pl). Both calls are available on REGION’s website. Also, visit the website to read REGION’s latest article about the role of spatial spill-overs in regional economic development in Europe.

Seasonal greetings from the REGION editorial team and see you in 2019!

Vassilis Tselios, Roberto Patuelli, Özge Öner, Francisco Rowe, Sierdjan Koster, Declan Jordan

Investigaciones Regionales Journal of Regional Research of AECR

The Journal of Regional Research – Investigaciones Regionales (http://investigacionesregionales.org/en) currently welcome papers for a Special Issue devoted to the spatial dimension of Social Inclusion policies:

Topic: Towards a social inclusion model: territorial experiences and challenges

21 December 2018: Deadline for Title and Abstract more

Photo: Professor Constantin receives the award from Professor Nicolae Istudor, the university Rector.

Spatial Productivity for Regional and Local Development

21-25 January 2019, Trento, Italy

more

7 February 2019, Brussels, Belgium

Speaker: Prof. Enrique López-Bazo, AQR-University of Barcelona, Spain

Discussant: Dr. Michaela Backman, Jönköping International Business School, Sweden

Topic: Innovation and the region’s context

more

2019 Annual Winter Seminar of the Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung

16-23 February 2019, Matrei in Osttirol, Austria

more

13th – 16th March 2019, Low Tatras, slovakia

Abstract submission deadline: 31 December, 2018

more

Challenges of Europe

22-24 May 2019, Bol, Island Brac, Croatia

Special session co-organised by the ERSA-Croatian section, EURA and RSA

Title: Monitoring systems for measuring progress in spatial, urban and regional development – Case of Croatia

more

Cities and regions in the process of transformation

16-22 June 2019, Katowice, Poland

Target: PhD students and junior researchers with less than 10 years of research experience. Places are limited to 30 participants. more

Evidence-based territorial policymaking:

Formulation, implementation and evaluation of policy

4-5 July 2019, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Deadline for Special Session Proposal : 29 February 2019

more

4-6 July 2019, ”Al.I. Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania

Call for Abstracts Start: 20 December 2018  Deadline: 20 February 2019

more

47th Annual Conference

16-19 July 2019, Cambridge, United Kingdom

more

27-30 August 2019, Lyon, France

28 February, 2019 more

#ersa2019Lyon and #LyonIwillbethere

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A. I. S. Re XXXX Annual Scientific Conference

16-18 September 2019, L’Aquila, Italy

Save the date! More info to be published shortly

more

Annual Conference

20-22 November 2019, Castellón de la Plana, Spain

Save the date!