Karen Polenske is Professor of Regional Political Economy and Planning at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Some of us have wondered why more U.S. and European women are not attracted to the sciences and engineering as well as economics, regional science, and other disciplines that require mathematics. Encouragement to do mathematics (and statistics) is needed early from parents and teachers while girls are still in grade school and high school. Often young girls are discouraged from taking it beyond the required subjects, although the use of the computer may be changing this. I never gave much thought as to taking or not taking mathematics when I was in high school. I enjoyed maths and also enjoyed teaching other students about how to do the problem sets.

In high school, when I took geometry, I was the only girl out of about 200 in my class who was still attending the mathematics class. I was planning to be an extension agent, and my teachers could not understand why I wanted to learn maths. In graduate school, I was part of the first class in the economics department at Harvard University where we had the option of taking either a language or a mathematics examination. Until then, graduates were only required to pass the language examination. I took the maths option.

Look at the early issues (before 1960) of The American Economic Review, and you will find that articles were mostly devoid of equations, and authors used tables only to review historical or current data descriptively. Times have changed. Mathematics is now a regular part of most economic and regional science articles. Also many women attend the regional science meetings. Most do not realize how few women attended the early meetings. I remember one meeting in Chicago many years ago where Anna Nagurney and I were the only women in a group of over 100 men. Now, many women attend the annual meetings, and we have a get-together each year at the meetings, so that we become much better acquainted with one another (see Maureen Kilkenny’s article below).

I definitely think that having  more women attend the meetings, becoming Fellows of the Regional Science Association International, and playing an active role in the Regional Science Association is a move in the right direction. I am not as sanguine about the current emphasis on mathematics and econometrics, partly because I see too many articles where the authors do not understand the underlying economic concerns – their focus on the econometrics often obscures the importance of the underlying issues.

(Published on RSAI Newsletter 2009 October)

Peter Nijkamp is professor in regional and urban economics and in economic geography at the VU University, Amsterdam. His main research interests cover plan evaluation, multicriteria analysis, regional and urban planning, transport systems analysis, mathematical modelling, technological innovation, and resource management. In the past years he has focused his research in particular on quantitative methods for policy analysis, as well as on behavioural analysis of economic agents. He has been visiting professor in many universities all over the world and he is past president of the European Regional Science Association and of the Regional Science Association International. In 2004 he received the Founder’s Medal. Peter comments:

‘Since its genesis in the 1950s, regional science has addressed over the successive decades social science issues related to regional and urban development. The methodologies deployed in regional science analyses have shown a wide variety of approaches ranging from policy evaluation to spatial econometrics, from spatial impact assessment to computable regional equilibrium model- ling, and so forth. The orientation in regional science was explicitly interdisciplinary in nature.

Interdisciplinary research has become rather fashionable in recent years, as it is generally believed that new scientific discoveries are most likely to be found as the interface or edge of different disciplines. From this perspective, regional science has a pioneering role to play in the future of the social sciences. It should also be added that regional science seeks its thematic orientation in the study of regions as concrete spatial entities which might be investigated from different perspectives. Thus, regional science offers a prism through which regions can be analyzed; it is not an omniscience in itself.

The Regional Science Association International (a few years ago) decided to create a system of ‘Fellows’ to honour scholars who have significantly contributed to papers in regional science research. In my view, an RSAI fellow is not in the first place an honoured scientist, but a scholar whose task it is to render services to the broader regional science community, in particular the younger generation.

From my early encounters with regional science - in the early 1970s – I have been fascinated by the wealth of approaches and news that are generated to better understand the ‘secrets’ of regions. Regional scientists form a scientific community of scholars who are fascinated by the undiscovered nature of modern regions and who are part of a discovery tour that will never come to an end. Regional science research is a discovery race without a finish’.

(Published on RSAI Newsletter 2009 March)

Building bridges in regional science

2025 and 2026 conference participation support

The RSAI facilitates the participation of researchers from low-income and lower-middle-income economies (as defined by the World Bank: https://data.worldbank.org/about/country-and-lending-groups#Low_income) at the RSAI World Congress 2026, and the three largest Regional Science Conferences in 2025 and 2026: PRSCO, ERSA and NARSC.

RSAI will provide a subsidy up to 500 Euros to selected researchers. This is likely to cover the conference registration fee and some local travel costs. Alternative means of financing will have to be sought for international travel and accommodation.

Only one author of a submitted paper presentation proposal can apply for a subsidy.

Interested researchers should upload a two-page CV plus a one-page motivation –including a budget with proposed sources of funding of the conference-related registration, travel and accommodation costs – within 30 days of receiving confirmation of the acceptance of the researcher’s abstract by the conference organizers.

Applicants should be regular members of the RSAI, and have had a paper accepted for presentation at the conference.

All applications, to be submitted at the following link:

https://forms.gle/G57Q983dAUK7aV9Z8

will be reviewed by the Committee and will have to be formally approved by the RSAI Council. Their decision will be final.

Before applying, please check if your country is eligible.

The North American Regional Science Council (NARSC) promotes the scholarly exchange of ideas and knowledge that apply to urban and regional phenomena in North America and across the globe.

The association fosters exchange across academic disciplines and builds on the understanding that urban and regional issues are best addressed by utilizing tools, methods, and theoretical frameworks specifically designed for regional analysis, as well as concepts, procedures, and analytical techniques of the various social and other sciences.

The association organizes an annual national conference that provides a forum for interaction and discussion, and sponsors scholarly regional science journals for the dissemination of research and ideas. NARSC is an objective, scientific body without political, social, financial, or nationalistic bias.

The Pacific Regional Science Conference Organisation (PRSCO) was established at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Association (WRSA) in San Diego, February 1-4, 1968 at the initiative of representatives from WRSA and the Japan Section of the Regional Science Association (JSRSA). The first conference of PRSCO was held at the East-West Center, University of Hawaii, August 26-29, 1969. Subsequently, full conferences and smaller meetings have been held in many countries in the Pacific Rim area. A full international conference is held every second year and a smaller summer institute in alternate years.

The PRSCO is one of the 4 supra-regional associations of RSAI (Regional Science Association International) which is founded in 1954. The PRSCO enhances and facilitates exchange of research information in the field of regional science among members of Membership Sections of the PRSCO, as well as the exchange of this information in the Pacific Rim area between such members and other persons with an interest in regional science.

The PRSCO is a federation of the following affiliated sections/associations of the Regional Science Association International in the Pacific Rim Area. 

The European Regional Science Association (ERSA) is the supranational grouping of national regional science associations across Europe.

The main functions of ERSA, apart from promoting the field of regional science, are to organize an Annual European Congress, an Annual Summer School, the EPAINOS prize for young scientists and the ERSA European Prize in Regional Science to recognize outstanding regional scientists.

ERSA members are academics, policy professionals and researchers interested in spatial economics and planning, regional and local development and related issues. They are drawn largely from the disciplines of economics, geography and planning. There are presently 20 active associations (commonly named ’sections’), some, such as the German or French speaking sections, organized on linguistic groupings and covering more than one country. Constituent associations range in size from more than 700 members to 27. The largest sections have their own national professional organizers. In total, ERSA has some 3500 members in its constituent associations.

ERSA events have been growing in size and professionalism over the past 10 years. Attendance at Congresses has grown consistently over time, and more than 1000 delegates participated in the last three Congresses. The Summer Schools have been supported by the European Commission’s Marie Curie Program and the European Investment Bank Institute Program.

Rena Sivitanidou, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development passed away June 30, 2000, after a short illness. She is survived by her husband, Petros Sivitanides, her mother, and her brother and sister. Prof. Sivitanidou was an outstanding teacher, researcher and colleague. She holds the distinction of having won the Planning and Development Outstanding Teacher Award for every one of the 8 years she taught at USC, and her reputation for teaching excellence was recognized far beyond USC. Her contributions to the Master of Real Estate Development program centered on the magnificent way in which she taught market analysis. She also took great pride in teaching students of planning and development at all levels. Prof. Sivitanidou was passionate with helping us understand better the nature and dynamics of land rents. She has authored and published numerous papers on this topic, and her publications appeared in the top journals in the field. Her research is well known as being creative, rigorous and applicable to real estate development. She was a leading scholar in USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate. Rena Sivitanidou was a member of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA), Regional Science Association (RSA), Regional Science Association International (RSAI), and the American Real Estate Society (ARES). She was a highly respected colleague, and most of all, a good friend and mentor to large numbers of students. She will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

Moss Madden, a long-standing member of RSAI and the immediate past Chairman of the British and Irish Section, died suddenly on 16 February at the age of 53. It was typical of Moss's commitment to participation in international regional science activities that, at the time of his tragic death, he had only recently returned from the South African Symposium on Regional Development in Port Elizabeth, was on the point of leaving to join the Anglo-Irish/Israeli Workshop that he had done so much to co-organise in Jerusalem, and two weeks later was due to present a paper at the Western Regional Science Association meeting in Hawaii. Moss was brought up and went to school in Falmouth and retained his Cornish roots. He took great pleasure in organising the 1997 Annual Conference of the British and Irish Section in Falmouth, a venue that was much appreciated by those that attended. He spent the whole of his academic career at the University of Liverpool, first as a student of engineering and then as a staff member of the Department of Civic Design. He was appointed to a Chair in Planning and Regional Science in 1993.

Moss first came to appreciate the benefits of presenting his ideas and research output before an international regional science audience at the European RSA Congress in London in 1979. After that first taste of the conference circuit, Moss soon became a regular participant in RSAI conferences and workshops both in Europe and in North America, following his attendance of the First World Congress in Regional Science in Boston in 1980.

Moss also soon became involved in the development of the activities of the then British Section of the RSA, joining the committee in 1982. His early contributions included involvement in the organisation of the European Workshops on Strategic Planning and later the establishment, in 1990, of the UK Inter-Regional Input-Output Table Workshop and its subsequent convenorship. However, it was in the establishment of the Anglo-Israeli Regional Science Workshops series, initiated in 1991 in collaboration with Dani Shefer, that Moss made a major contribution to the development of international networks of regional science research cooperation.

Moss's increasingly influential role in the British Section was reflected in his election as Section Chairman between 1993 and 1997. It was in this capacity that Moss was largely responsible for the renaming of the Section as the British and Irish Section and was the leading force in initiating the Section's hosting of the European RSA Congress in Dublin in 1999.

These events provided a fertile environment in which to cultivate his research contributions and to establish and foster his collaborative links. These mainly focused upon furthering the development of innovative new approaches to the handling of interactions between demographic and economic elements of the traditional input-output modelling framework that he mapped out and explored in particular with Peter Batey. There were perhaps, two underlying principles that underpinned much of his research. First, he believed that the focus of research should be to understand and lead towards the solving of real problems and that theory by itself was not sufficient - it had to be applicable. Second, although he concentrated on applied work, he was always eager to introduce and develop new techniques in his analyses. He recognised that policy choices could be best informed by a careful application of the latest theoretical developments to real world problems.

Not only did Moss demonstrate his own abilities in this area; he also encouraged others to demonstrate theirs'. At meetings he was keen to engage in academic debate with others. He was always ready to help to convene sessions at conferences in order to bring together scholars, often with quite differing backgrounds to exchange ideas on a given topic. His wide range of interests and contacts made him the ideal person for this. He also recognised the importance of disseminating the ideas raised at such sessions to a wider audience as is evidenced by the number of edited volumes he collated and contributed to. It is appropriate that a lasting testament to Moss's contribution to the field of regional science will be his many individually authored and collaborative publications - not least those volumes to which he devoted so much time and effort in helping to organise and subsequently to co-edit. To the earlier individual volumes co-edited with Peter Batey, Luc Anselin and Geoff Hewings, has recently been added 'Regional Science in Business', co-edited with Graham Clarke - with further volumes close to completion at the time of his death.

Moss's outstanding work in the fields of planning and regional science was recognised last year with his election as one of the founding Academicians of the Association of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

There can be no doubt that those of us who were privileged to know him will continue to recall and appreciate the many ways in which Moss's presence made involvement in the organisation and attendance of regional science events, and associated activities, all the more rewarding and enjoyable. We can count ourselves fortunate that we were able to benefit from his infectious enthusiasm for his subject, his illuminating grasp of technical detail, his incisive questioning from the chair or the floor and, perhaps above all, from his humour, wit and wholehearted commitment to engaging in, and enjoying, the social interaction and networking upon which the healthy future development of the regional science community will continue to depend. The world of regional science, to which he made so many valuable contributions, will be so much the poorer for his passing.

- Peter Batey, Peter Brown & John Dewhurst - April 2000

Professor Dacey served as an assistant professor of regional science in the early years of the Regional Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1964 he moved to Northwestern University where he was faculty member for over 42 years. The following was posted on the Northwestern University News website. EVANSTON, Ill. --- Michael F. Dacey of Evanston, senior associate dean at the Northwestern University Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, died Saturday (Dec. 23) at Evanston Hospital after a short illness. Services are pending.
Mr. Dacey, 74, who also served as professor of anthropology and geological sciences, joined the Northwestern faculty in 1964. He served as chair of the department of geography from 1976 to 1982 and was named associate dean at the Weinberg College in 1987 and senior associate dean in 1993.

He founded the Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS) program in 1978 and taught in the program every year. The program enables a select group of high ability students to combine the study of social sciences -
such as anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology -- with training in formal analytical methods to create a mathematical model.
Since the program's inception, Mr. Dacey and his wife Jeanette have held two parties in their home every year for MMSS students - one for entering students in the fall and one for graduating students and their parents in the spring. Prizes in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Dacey were established in 2004 to recognize the student with the best performance on a senior thesis and the student with the best performance in required coursework.
Mr. Dacey, who received a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1981, was the author of books, papers and reports in geography, geology, regional science, statistics, operations research, mathematics, urban planning, water resources and anthropology.
A native of Holyoke, Mass., Mr. Dacey attend Bates College and received a bachelor's degree in geography from the University of Kansas in 1954. He earned master's and Ph.D. degrees in geography from the University of Washington in 1955 and 1960, respectively. He then served as an assistant professor of regional science at the University of Pennsylvania from 1960 to 1964.
Mr. Dacey is survived by his wife, Jeanette; a daughter, Rachel Ann Niemann of Evanston; a granddaughter, Kayla; and a sister, Patricia Folsom of Maine.

28 - 31 May 2019, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

IMPORTANT DATES:

Abstract submission deadline: 10 December 2018

Early bird registration deadline: 1 April 2019

The International Conference on Energy Research and Social Science is the premier global forum for exploring the nexus of energy and society.

The 2019 conference will highlight the intersection of on-going and future changes in the energy sector and global society. Because energy is intimately woven into every society, alterations in energy systems reverberate throughout economies, cultures, landscapes, and politics. These changes transform human futures, even as social, policy, and market innovation create new pathways for energy technologies and industries. The opportunity to remake energy systems into more environmentally sustainable forms is thus also an opportunity to improve societal wellbeing and justice.

CONFERENCE CHAIRS:

Martin Pasqualetti, Arizona State University, USA

Clark Miller, Arizona State University, USA

Julia Hobson Haggerty, Montana State University, USA

TOPICS: Abstracts are invited that explore the intersection of energy and social change. Illustrative examples of appropriate topics include, but are not limited to:

- Societal drivers, dynamics, and outcomes of energy systems change (including social, economic, cultural, or political aspects)

- Public perspectives on and responses to new energy technologies

- Innovations in energy and electricity markets and policy

- Changing landscapes and geographies of energy production, transport, and consumption

- The social practices of energy use, demand, and behavior

- Historical and social analyses of transitions

- Cities, urban energy systems, and urban form and function

- New models of governance and democracy

- Geopolitics of energy transformations

- The energy-poverty nexus, including questions of ethics, justice, and inequality in energy systems change

- Energy innovation and sustainable development

- Enduring and changing relationships of energy, gender, and race

Interdisciplinary contributions from across the social sciences, environmental studies, humanities, and energy research are welcomed.

SUBMISSIONS/FURTHER INFORMATION: For full details visit: http://www.elsevier.com/erss-conference