RSPP Annual Paper Award

For the Best Paper in Regional Science Policy and Practice

1. Goal

The Award recognizes annually a scientist who have demonstrated creativity, merit and prospective effectiveness through the publication of a paper of remarkable quality in Regional Science Policy and Practice.

2. The Award

2.1 The award recognizes and honours practitioners, policy makers and scientists that with their work, decisions and research helped the development of peoples and places.

2.2 The Prize is annual and awards the best paper published two years before of Regional Science Policy and Practice.

2.3 Normally no more than one paper may be selected from an annual Volume of RSPP, but in exceptional circumstances two (2) papers may be selected for the Award.

2.4 The Award involves the payment of 750 € and certificates for the authors.

3. Jury and Process for Recommending the Award

3.1 In the first quarter of each year, the Editor in Chief of Regional Science Policy and Practice identifies a list of at least three (3) papers published on the Volume of the previous year.

3.2 The Editor-in Chief of Regional Science Policy and Practice will then send the papers for appraisal to the jury composed by the Editor in Chief, one editor and three Fellows proposed by the Editor-in-Chief to the Council

3.3 The Jury will appraise and rank the papers in a meeting in person and/or by email/teleconference in March to select the paper to receive the Award.

3.4 The Editor-in-Chief of Regional Science Policy and Practice will inform the Executive Director of RSAI of the decision of the Jury, and the Executive Director of RSAI will inform the recipient(s) of the Award.

3.5 The Awardee(s) will be invited to attend one of the Supra-Regional (NARSC, LACRSA, ERSA, PRSCO) meetings or the RSAI World Congress to receive the Award.

Apreciado colega, querido amigo,

En pocos días cerrará la recepción de resúmenes para laXLIII edición de la Reunión de Estudios Regionales y el XIII Congreso de Ciencia Regional de Andalucía que se celebrara en el Campus de la Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Sevilla) los días 15, 16 y 17 de noviembre de 2017. Si deseas unirte a los más de 200 participantes en uno de los grandes eventos en el calendario de la Ciencia Regional para 2017, deberás enviar tu resumen antes del próximo día 2 de junio.

El lema de esta edición es “Comercio internacional y empleo: Una perspectiva regional”. Las sesiones del Congreso tratarán además un conjunto amplio de temas agrupado en 16 áreas temáticas y sesiones especiales. Además, en esta edición contaremos con la presencia como conferenciantes del prof. Ferrán Sancho (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) y el prof. Michael Lahr (Rutgers Economic Advisory).

Como novedad en esta edición y con el objetivo principal de complementar el público académico del congreso con otro tipo de participantes más técnico, de administraciones locales, ofrecemos, en paralelo a las comunicaciones, unas sesiones en las que profesorado de universidades/investigadores presenten trabajos de Transferencia de Conocimiento que hayan realizado para Administraciones Locales, supralocales o regionales, y que crean que pueden ser de interés para otros técnicos de otros territorios. Por ello os pedimos que, aquellos que estéis interesados en participar, nos enviéis el modelo abstract adjunto para considerarlos a This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. y poder incluirlos en el programa. El plazo de presentación de esta nueva actividad es hasta el 31 de julio de 2017. Para todos aquellos responsables de administraciones locales, entidades públicas y privadas os recomendamos asistir al congreso, a estas interesantes sesiones paralelas a aprender, compartir experiencias y lograr mejorar en cuestiones estudiadas y explicados por expertos.

Otra novedad en esta edición la colaboración de la Revista de Estudios Andaluces, que seleccionará algún artículo/os de los presentados en el congreso para su proceso de evaluación.

Toda la información necesaria para que podáis enviar vuestros trabajos y realizar la inscripción se encuentra en la página web de laXLIII edición de la Reunión de Estudios Regionales. Os recordamos que la extensión máxima es de  300 palabras, y que se enviará a la Secretaria de la AECR (Conxita Rodriguez i Izquierdo) a la siguiente dirección de correo electrónico (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) con el modelo que os adjuntamos. 

Te rogamos que difundas esta información entre todas las personas que puedas considerar interesadas en participar. Además del envío de artículos completos, pueden presentarse también trabajos en curso en forma de un abstract ampliado, con una extensión mínima de 1.500 palabras. Os adjuntamos los dos tipos de abstracts para que los tengáis a mano y más información sobre el Congreso.

Los estudiantes de Master y doctorandos de primer año disfrutarán de la posibilidad de asistir a las sesiones y eventos incluidos en el programa del congreso  pagando una cuota de inscripción reducida y, si además quieren tener la posibilidad de discutir sus planes futuros de investigación podrán participar en sesiones especiales de posters.

¡Os esperamos en Sevilla!

Un saludo cordial,

El Comité Organizador

Valued colleague, dear friend,

The abstract submission deadline for the XLIII Reunión de Estudios Regionales and the XIII Conference on Regional Science of Andalusia, that will take place at the Campus of the University Pablo de Olavide (Seville), from the 15th to the 17th of November, 2017is quickly approaching. If you want to join more than 200 participants in one of the main events of the Regional Science calendar for 2017, you must submit your abstract before June 2rd.

The motto for the Conference is "International trade and employment: a regional perspective”. Conference sessions will include also a wide range of topics, grouped in 16 subject areas and special sessions. We are pleased to announce that Prof. Ferrán Sancho (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) and Prof. Michael Lahr (Rutgers Economic Advisory Service) will join the Conference as Keynote Speakers.

As a novelty in this edition and with the main objective of complementing the academic public of the congress with other types of more technical participants, of local administrations, we offer, in parallel to the communications, sessions in which professors of universities / researchers present works of Transfer of Knowledge that they have performed for Local, supralocal or regional Administrations, and which they believe may be of interest to other technicians from other territories. Therefore we ask that those who are interested in participating, send us the attached abstract template to consider to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and be able to include them in the program. The deadline for submitting this new activity is until July 31, 2017. For all those responsible for local administrations, public and private entities we recommend attending the conference: these interesting parallel sessions to learn, share experiences and achieve improvement in issues Studied and explained by experts.

Another novelty in this edition is the collaboration of the Revista de Estudios Andaluces, which will select some articles from those presented at the congress for its evaluation process.

Abstracts, with an extension of no more than 300 words, should be sent to the AECR Secretary (Conxita Rodriguez i Izquierdo) to the email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., whith the attached template. This year you can submit the results from ongoing research even if there is not a complete paper available yet. The Scientific Committe will consider for acceptance the submission of long abstracts, with a minimum extension of 1,500 words. Templates for both types of abstracts, as well as further information for the Conference, are attached for your convenience.

You can find all the information for registration and submission at the XLIII edición de la Reunión de Estudios Regionales web page. 

Looking forward to meet you at Seville!

Greetings,

The Organizing Committee

Dear NECTAR friends

We are less than two weeks away from the 14th International NECTAR conference in Madrid, May 31-June 2. The Madrid conference will have over 130 participants and will be an exciting event. The conference will also mark the 25th anniversary of NECTAR and special events will be organized to celebrate this milestone.

In Madrid, we will also award the 2nd NECTAR PhD Award for best recent PhD thesis work in the NECTAR field. The award is established in memory of Professor Piet Rietveld, who chaired NECTAR in the years 2002-2007 and who with his exceptional academic abilities inspired and stimulated many young researchers, PhD students and the NECTAR community in general. Fourteen excellent theses had been nominated by their PhD supervisors, and the PhD Committee, chaired by Professor Erik Verhoef, had a very difficult task selecting the winner. I am pleased to announce here that Cyrille Médard de Chardon from the University of Luxembourg wrote the winning thesis titled “A geographical analysis of bicycle sharing systems”. Cyrille will present his thesis in the closing plenary session of the conference.

Furthermore, I am also happy to announce that at the Madrid conference the new NECTAR cluster 7 on Social and Health Issues will be launched. The social and health-related impacts from transport are diverse and there are many challenges to understand how they affect our social and economic wellbeing. This new cluster will bring together researchers from a variety of scientific disciplines and will surely help to strengthen NECTAR as a multidisciplinary social science network. The aims of the cluster and the cluster co-chairs are presented in this newsletter.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Madrid!

Karst Geurs, NECTAR chair

http://www.civic-project.eu/en/events/14th-nectar-international-conference

Associate Professor Budy P. Resosudarmo, member of the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics at the Australian National University, Australia, was elected by the RSAI Council of Tainan (19th May 2017) as President of RSAI for the term 2017-2018. Budy Resosudarmo has impressive academic accomplishments, a large practice in organizing successful conferences, an extensive experience with professional organizations and have successfully reinvigorated new regional science sections namely in Indonesia. This RSAI choice brings the sound hope of an enlarged, better and global scientific organization targeted to the study of human interaction in space for the sustainable development of persons and places.

The motivation to be the leader of RSAI is to significantly expand RSAI organizations and programs in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, and South America, whilst maintaining the size and programs in North America, Europe and Australia. I would also lay down further foundations for possible future development of RSAI in Africa. In achieving this goal, I would like to do, among others, the following:

1. Promoting organization models and strategies that could work for founding and developing RSAI sections in developing countries.

In 1997 when Indonesia’s GDP was approximately US$1,000 per capita, with some initial guidance from Professors Geoffrey Hewings and Yoshiro Higano, I co-found the Indonesian section of RSAI (; i.e. Indonesian Regional Science Association or IRSA). IRSA’s first annual meeting was held in 2000.

Since 2000, IRSA conducts an annual meeting every year without fail and continues to grow as an organization. In 2000, we only had 14 papers submitted for our conference. In 2016, we received more than 400 paper submissions of which 220 papers were accepted for presentation. In the last 5 years, more than 300 people annually participated in our conference. By now the IRSA annual conference, which holds the only annual English-spoken academic conference in Indonesia with a call-for-papers program, is the main development policy conference in the country. IRSA itself has become one of the very few independent professional associations in Indonesia with strong orientation toward research and policy analysis. The organization does so by encouraging researchers to produce research papers and engage in a network of researchers through their participation in the annual IRSA conference.

Furthermore, within countries with the current level of Indonesia’s GDP per capita (almost $4,000), not many independent academic associations are as well-established as IRSA. Since its inception, I have acted as a key figure in the organization of the conference and publication, and for a long time I have been the vice president of IRSA. With this experience, I am confident that I can provide extensive advice to academics in developing countries on how to create independent academic associations there. I can work with them on models of organizations and strategies that would suit their respective country situations. In any opportunity, for example, I will discuss my experiences with academics from developing countries, via one-on-on meetings or by creating sessions where we will thoroughly discuss how to establish an association in a developing country.

2. Developing programs encouraging inter-RSAI section collaboration, particularly between RSAI sections in developed and developing countries.

Since 2011 I have been the head of ANU Indonesia Project, a Project funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade aimed, among others, at encouraging collaborative activities between Australia and Indonesian institutions. When I took this position, Australian related academic activities were restricted in a few Javanese major cities; i.e. Jakarta, Bogor, Bandung and Yogyakarta.

These activities were limited to collaborations between Australian institutions and a small number of Indonesian institutions. Under my leadership, ANU Indonesia Project then successfully implemented several programs that resulted in the dissemination of Australian-Indonesian collaboration throughout Indonesia. Now Australian related academic activities are present in numerous cities around Indonesia and are conducted in collaboration with local institutions within those cities. Recently, some of our programs have been adopted by similar projects funded by other countries’ aid institutions. Based on this experience, I should be able to propose several programs that RSAI could adopt.

3. Directing some of the RSAI related publications/journals so they become the main development policy journals for developing countries.

My vision is for RSAI to not have the developing world as merely the subject of some of its publications and journals, but rather also provide more opportunities for academics from developing countries to publish their research in these publications/journals. For more than 15 years, I have been involved in the management of an Australian based economic journal on Indonesia. Since 2011 I have become the head of ANU Indonesia Project, where I guide the editorial team in determining the direction of the journal. Up until the early 2000s it was common for various issues of this journals to be published without a single Indonesian author. We developed activities and programs to encourage Indonesian authors to submit their work to this journal and to improve the quality of these submissions. This has resulted in at least one Indonesian author being published in almost every issue.

4. Creating a situation to encourage young academics from developing countries to pursue higher education at graduate programs in developed countries, where the presence of regional scientists are prominent.

In the last 15 years I have been living in Australia, I have observed the country was able to significant increase the numbers of its graduate students from Southeast Asia. These 15 years of insight will provide the basis for me in advising graduate programs in developed countries on attracting students from developing countries, particularly Southeast Asia. I will also develop programs encouraging young academics in developing countries to enrol to these programs.

5. Help acquiring for funding from both international and domestic sources to support RSAI activities in developing countries.

In the last 15 years, I have successfully attracted funds from aid agencies to support IRSA and several other organizations in Southeast Asia. Currently, it is quite challenging to raise funds from international donors due to the global economy. Even with the right strategy and persistence, resources from aid agencies to fund RSAI’s activities in the developing world will be limited. My knowledge of the relevance of local associations such as the local sections of RSAI to aid agencies can help to put them in perspective and priorities of these agencies.

To develop RSAI organizations and activities in developing countries, maintaining RSAI sections in developed countries as centres of excellence in regional science is absolutely crucial. I would like to see that the strength of these centres of excellence are maintained and continuously affirmed.

I certainly understand that there are serious challenges in developing RSAI organizations in developing countries. Implementing the above mentioned programs will involve a lot of hard work on my part. I hope to strengthen my networks with other colleagues in RSAI and to gain their support to help me achieve these tasks, if elected.

Yours sincerely,

Budy P. Resosudarmo

Program available at: http://cieo15.wixsite.com/localdev2017award

Dear all,

The new RSAI Newsletter May 2017 can now be found under

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