Last news bulletin for the year.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a
happy new year

Best wishes

Graham

Prof Graham Clarke
Exec Dir RSAI

A. Below is a reminder of the 3 supra-regional meetings for 2009.

1.  21st Conference for the Pacific Regional Science Conference
Organisation (19 – 22 July, 2009, Surfers Paradise, Queensland,
Australia)

The 21st PRSCO Conference will be hosted by the Australia New Zealand
Regional Science Association International at the Conrad Jupiter´s
Convention Centre, Surfers Paradise, Australia, 19-22 July 2009. The
overall theme of the conference is:

GLOBAL CHALLENGES – REGIONAL RESPONSES

The indicative timetable for submitted papers is as follows:

1 August 2008 Second Call for Papers issued
Website opened for submission of abstracts
Acceptance will be notified within 3 weeks

20 March 2009 Final date for submission of abstracts

20 April 2009 Draft conference programme on website

29 May 2009 Final date for submission of full paper

19 June 2009 Final conference programme on website

19 July 2009 Conference opens

For more details see the website:
http://www.uow.edu.au/conferences/PRSCO2009/home.html

2. ERSA congress August 2009 LODZ – call for abstracts: deadline for
abstract submission 16th January, 2009

The 49th Congress of the European Regional Science Association is
drawing near! We invite all regional scientists to submit abstracts and
to participate in this event which will take place in the heart of
Poland – in Lodz.

The central theme of the Congress is «Territorial cohesion of Europe and
integrative planning». It is our ambition to relate the issues discussed
during the Congress to the overriding objective of the European regional
policy – cohesion in social, economic and territorial dimensions.
Discussions will also be centred around the integrative approach to
regional development of Europe.

Two prominent keynote speakers have already confirmed their attendance.
We are proud to announce that keynote lectures will be given by prof.
Andreas Faludi and prof. Gilles Duranton.

On behalf of the Local Organising Committee,

Prof. Tadeusz Markowski President, Polish Section of ERSA

To submit your abstract and get more information about ERSA congress,
visit: http://www.ersa.org/spip.php?rubrique2 

3. The NARSC Conference in 2009 will be held in San Francisco in
November. An early poster is available to browse at:

http://www.narsc.org/RSAI_Final_Design_10-20-08.pdf

B. The recent election for RSAI Council members saw Sam Park and Danny
Shafer elected. Congratulations to both.
Thank you once again to all of you who voted.

C. Prizes

Please do not forget to nominate colleagues for:

i) Fellows

RSAI members are invited to nominate distinguished scholars for
consideration to become 2009 Fellows of RSAI. The nomination process can
be initiated by any member of RSAI and consists of a letter of
nomination, detailing the scientific merit and contribution of the
nominee and an up to date curriculum vitae. Current Fellows are not
allowed to submit nominations. To ensure full consideration by the
committee, these materials should be provided in electronic format (pdf
preferred) by January 31, 2009 to Richard Arnott, Chair 2009 Fellows
Election Committee at: richard.arnott@ucr.edu

ii) Student dissertations

The Association invites the submission of dissertations completed in
2008 in the field of Regional Science to the annual competition.

To apply, send an executive summary electronically no later than June 1,
2009 to rsai-dissertation@wu-wien.ac.at.This e-mail address is being
protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Two
copies of the dissertation and a letter of nomination from the research
supervisor should follow by regular mail, to be received no later than
July 1, 2008. Send all submissions to Professor Gunther Maier, Institute
for Regional Development and Environment, Vienna University of Economics
and Business Administration, Augasse 2-6, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. The
dissertations should be in finished form and professionally presented. A
CD with a PDF copy of the dissertation may be included.

For further information about the RSAI Dissertation Competition, please
contact Prof. Maier at gunther.maier@wu-wien.ac.at.This e-mail address
is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view
it

iii)The Peter Nijkamp RSAI Research Encouragement Award for an Early
Career Scholar from a Developing Country

The Award recognizes the outstanding potential of an early career
researcher from a nation in the developing world and in which there is a
formal Section of RSAI, and seeks to encourage the development of the
early career scholar as a high quality researcher in the field of
Regional Science and as a participant in the international Regional
Science
community. Eligibility to apply for the Award is restricted to early
career researchers, defined as person in full time employment in either
a teaching or a research position in a university or research
institution in a developing nation in which there is a member section of
RSAI, and who has held their doctoral qualification for no mote than
seven (7) years as
at the 31 December in the year in which they apply for the Award. An
applicant for the Award must provide the RSAI Executive Director with an
electronic copy of a paper, formatted in accordance with the
requirements for submitting a manuscript to Papers in Regional Science,
that is intended to be presented or which has been accepted for
presentation to a forthcoming NARSC, ERSA or PRSCO conference or the
RSAI World Congress. In addition, an applicant for the Award must
provide the RSAI Executive Director. Nominations to me please by June
1st 2009.

D. Watch out for the revamped newsletter to appear in January 2009!!

Once again Merry Christmas everyone!