Dear Colleagues,

The perspectives of a more Walled World are coming with the reaction to migrants and the territorial conflicts over natural and strategic resources. The impacts on human welfare and regional development of those walls are long and pervasive, constraining the freedom of people and places. The point we want to make is that regional scientists should think about it to produce sound research that can inform better gestures and attitudes.

We met in a coffee break in the ERSA Congress of Vienna last year, talk about the growing walls around the world, exchange some mails, and design a call for a Special Session S21 on Walled Territories for the ERSA Congress in Groningen. Then we asked Michael Carroll , the editor of Regional Science Policy and Practice if he could accept a Special Issue on the theme. Both responses were positive and we have now a big request for you to respond with your scientific effort to this urgent global and local problem.

You have ten days to propose an abstract https://ersa.eventsair.com/QuickEventWebsitePortal/2017-ersa-congress/official-website/ExtraContent/ContentSubPage?page=7&subPage=1 and a few months to develop the theme. The territorial illnesses of the world are nearby to be better understood. There are market and policy failures; but there are also science failures mostly when we are distracted from the reality.

Write your title, aims, methods and hypothesis in the abstract. There are loads of data to be treated and, we are sure, very effective results to be discussed, improved and publicised.

We can create a great year of 2017.

Andrea Szekely and Tomaz Dentinho