Call for Special Sessions ERSA 2018

The Local Organizing Committee of the 58th ERSA Congress in Cork, Ireland (August 28th – August 31st 2018) invite you to propose a Special Session to be included in the programme of next year’s conference. Please, send in your proposal before December 8th 2017.

We ask you to take note of the procedure and guidelines regarding Special Sessions at ERSA 2018:

What do we offer?

Special Sessions are a label of quality in the ERSA congress and we accommodate for this in several ways:

• We aim to allow 30 minutes for each presentation slot in a Special Session
• Each presentation in a Special Session will be assigned a discussant

What do we ask?

• Each Special Session has a minimum of 4 registered presenters
• Presenters apply for a special session on the basis of a draft
• Paper or an extended abstract (deadline February 28th 2018)
• Presentations are based on a draft paper that has been uploaded on the ERSA 2018 submission website before June 9th 2018

If a Special Session does not meet the conditions, it will still be included in the programme, labelled as an O-session.

Submitting a Proposal for a Special Session

You can submit your Special Session Proposal in this online form.

Note, that in addition to contact information of the primary convenor, names of any co-convenors, the title, and description of the Special Session, we also ask you to list three interested presenters in your submission form.

We look forward to receiving your proposals for Special Sessions. Should you have any questions, please contact the Local Organizing Committee at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Call for Abstracts

How to recover/heal communities, wellbeing and create resilient places from the ashes of wildfires?

Regional Science, assumed as Territorial Medicine, has to react and think about Forest Fires that are increasingly occurring and hurting particular places around the world: California, Norwest of Iberia and Southeast Australia.

Our hope is that the interdisciplinary and open approach of regional science, its methodological capability and its multi scale and diverse spatial scope can contribute to help the cure of unhealthy and suffering places and their peoples.

The journal Regional Science Policy and Practice in collaboration with the Portuguese Regional Science Association and other journals and associations that want to join the initiative, promote a seminar on Forest Fires at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra on December the 20th of 2017.

The idea is to stimulate the production of scientific papers to publish in a special issue of the journal Regional Science Policy and Practice and other publication (books, articles). The attitude is to overcome the phase of identification of the causes and causers of forest fires that is done and should be included in the literature review.

Beyond that, the aim is to collect scientific contributions that can help the cure of the territory acknowledging that places are the cumulative outcome of the will and action of many agents in their institutional, economic and environmental context recreated through time and space; which resilience, sustainability and development is constantly tested by disruptive phenomena.

The call for abstracts to the Symposium are open and your participation is very welcome!

Deadline for Abstracts submissions:30th November 2017

All information at the event website:

http://symposiumwildfires.weebly.com/

Looking forward to meeting you in Coimbra!

Organizing Committee

Dear all,

The new RSAI Newsletter November 2017 can now be found under

http://regionalscience.org/images/PDF/Newsletter%202017%20November.pdf

Dear Madam, Dear Sir,

Please find attached a call for papers for the conference on "What centralities outside metropolises? The future development of small European cities as a key issue for territorial equity " to be held on March 22^nd and 23^rd 2017 in Lamballe. This conference is organized by the scientific interest group "Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Rennes", the scientific interest group "Institut d'Aménagement et d'Urbanisme de Rennes" (IAUR), the research laboratory ESO Rennes from Rennes 2 University, the Chair "Territoires et Mutations de l'Action Publique" of Sciences Po Rennes, with the support ofthe Western Institute of Law and Europe (IODE) (UMR CNRS 6262) from the University of Rennes 1 and the city of Lamballe.

• Proposals for papers  should be sent to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• They will be submitted for evaluation to the Scientific Committee. Each proposal should include: 1) personal identifying data (first name, last name, title, institutional affiliation, email address); 2) the  paper's title ; 4) a  1-2 page summary
• Deadline for submitting proposals:  November 27th, 2017
• Reply and notification to authors: December 18th , 2017
• Working language during the conference : Presentations will be given in French and Powerpoint files possibly in English

We hope that this message will capture your interest and thank you for forwarding it to your networks. The participation of practitioners is expected and welcome. Despite our best efforts, this message may reach you several times. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Best regards

On behalf of the organisation comittee

We are pleased to inform you that a new issue of the Regional Statistics has been released and now it’s avaiable online.

REGIONAL STATISTICS, 2017, VOL 7, No 1.

STUDIES

Péter Járosi: Modelling Network Interdependencies of Regional Economies using Spatial Econometric TechniquesDOI: 10.15196/RS07201 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070101.pdf

Zsuzsanna Zsibók: Continuing divergence after the crisis: long-term regional economic development in the United Kingdom DOI: 10.15196/RS07202 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070102.pdf

Adam Drobniak: Economic resilience and hybridization of development – A case of the Central European Regions DOI: 10.15196/RS07203 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070103.pdf

Robert Guzik–Arkadiusz Kołoś–Krzysztof Gwosdz: Interconnections in public transport as a method for delimiting urban functional areas and the settlement hierarchy DOI: 10.15196/RS07204 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070104.pdf

Teodora  Brandmuller – Gunter Schäfer – Petri Ekkehard – Oliver Müller – Valeriya Angelova-Tosheva: Territorial indicators for policy purposes: NUTS regions and beyond DOI: 10.15196/RS07205 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070105.pdf

Péter Kovács – Gábor Bodnár:Examining the Factors of Endogenous Development

in Hungarian Rural Areas by Means of PLS Path Analysis DOI: 10.15196/RS07206 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070106.pdf

László J. Kulcsár – David L. Brown: Population Ageing in Eastern Europe: Toward a Coupled Micro-Macro Framework DOI: 10.15196/RS07207 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070107.pdf

Gábor Dudás – György Vida – Tamás Kovalcsik – Lajos Boros: A socio-economic analysis of Airbnb in New York City DOI: 10.15196/RS07208 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070108.pdf

Petra Szűcs – Miklós Lukovics – Kézy Béla: Opportunities for walkability in Szeged and Valencia DOI: 10.15196/RS07209 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070109.pdf

Gábor Valkó – Mária Fekete–Farkas – Ildikó Kovács: Indicators for the economic dimension of sustainable agriculture in the European Union DOI: 10.15196/RS07210 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070110.pdf

Zoltán Egri: Regional health inequalities in the European macroregion from the East Central European perspective DOI: 10.15196/RS07211 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070111.pdf

VISUALIZATIONS

György Csomós: Visualising cities’ international scientific collaboration: a spatial scientometric approach based on Scopus data DOI: 10.15196/RS07212 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/terstat/2017/rs070112.pdf

Ph.D Funding Opportunities at Michigan State University

Faculty in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences are now accepting applications for Ph.D. study in the areas of urban/economic geography and health/medical geography. Applicants with an interest in water and a background in statistical and geographic analyses and software are especially welcome. Funding is available on a competitive basis.

Specific focal areas/skills encouraged:

1.      Statistical analysis using Stata, SAS and/or R

2.      Geospatial statistical analysis using ArcMap, Geoda, SaTScan, QGIS

3.      Economic analyses of water availability and/or affordability

Water-health nexus with an emphasis on equity and environmental justice

The department is one of the largest geography departments in the United States and Michigan’s only geography PhD program. In 2017, the department received a national top-ten research ranking. MSU is also a Big Ten Academic Alliance Member which gives students the opportunity to take a wide range of courses at other Alliance universities. 

If interested, please send a curriculum vitae (CV) and a writing sample by December 1, 2017.

Prospective urban/economic geography students should contact Dr. Elizabeth Mack at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (www.elizabethmack.com). Prospective health/medical geography students should contact Dr. Amber Pearson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (https://msu.edu/~apearson/).

Interested applicants must apply and be admitted to the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences (http://geo.msu.edu/). The deadline for applications is December 31 to be considered for full funding and to be admitted Fall of 2018. Application instructions may be accessed via this link: (http://geo.msu.edu/graduate-information/apply/). International applicants please note: The Graduate Record Exam (GRE) is required for entry into US graduate programs. Other requirements can be found by visiting the website above.

Innovation processes in rural areas

Livia Madureira This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - CETRAD, University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro.
André Torre This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - INRA, University Paris Saclay.

Call for papers for a special issue of Regional Science Policy and Practice until January 15, 2018

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1757-7802 

One often consider that rural territories are not innovative. Innovation would be mainly reserved for urban spaces and in particular for big cities, as revealed by the concentration of high tech firms and clusters in an urban environment. However, this preconceived idea meets two important limits. The first one is the existence of a very successful and very innovative farming sector, to the point that agriculture only employs nowadays an increasingly small number of workers, due to technical progress, in particular in Europe and in the USA, as well as in BRICs like Brazil for example. Agriculture and forestry are also the stage for intensive agro-ecological knowledge creation towards more sustainable farming processes and practices, involving both scientists and farmers. The second is that numerous innovations are emerging in rural areas highlighting non-technological types of innovation, like organizational innovations (new forms of networks between actors, direct marketing and local markets…), social innovations (cooperatives, services to the population…) and institutional innovations (Leader Programs, local charters…) along with product (superfoods, healthcare services and renewable energy) and technological innovations (the methanation for example).

This special issue aims to make the state of the art about innovations in rural areas, by describing various experiences, and by giving solid references onto the level of rural innovation and the characteristics of the latter, which bring new knowledge about innovation and support to policies to enhance it on rural territories.