Dear members of RSAI,

Taking into account that nominations for Councilor to be elected at-large shall be made by the Council after solicitation of suggestions from the members of the Association we inform that the proposals for councilor-at-large can be send to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before the 14th of September 2016. Suggestions shall include a CV and a photo.

The election of one councilor-at-large for the period 2017-2019 will be done electronically by RSAI members along September 2016.

Best regards,

Tomaz Ponce Dentinho

Executive Director

“Women in Regional Science"

(but more generally across social sciences)

• Gender – and more general Equality and Diversity (E&D) issues – recently resurfaced in an open debate across different social science disciplines. This stemmed from the observation of the strongly biased composition of academic community bodies of various types (e.g. key-note speakers, conference panels, editorial boards, summer school, policy research groups, etc.). A strong gender (and race) bias has been observed by groups of female academics spanning across regional science, economic geography, innovation studies, international business, and economics. It has been suggested that the gender bias has increased since the latest financial crisis, which has exacerbated competition in labour markets.
• In the Regional Science scientific community of the 1980s similar discussions were carried out and efforts were made to make the discipline more inclusive, for example by recruiting women into roles of responsibility within the community.  
• It is acknowledged that, since then, the gender ratio has changed substantially. Evidence of such change was acknowledged, e.g. Regional Science Newsletter, October 2009:

http://www.regionalscience.org/images/PDF/October_2009_newsletter.pdf

see, in particular, the article by Brigitte Waldorf  “Women in Regional Science: A success story”.

• It is realized, however, that the default choice in Regional Science, as in other disciplinary fields, is still highly ‘white male-dominated’. It is believed that this is not a success story for the community as a whole, and it will be a serious mistake to dismiss it as sorted while heading into the 2020's.   
• In the latest decades a lot of debate has been around the lack of representation of women in science, with a presumption that gender imbalance is a phenomenon affecting mainly STEM. However, this is also true in social sciences and related policy debates, although possibly in different ways from STEM (e.g. not so much lack of participation of women in social science, but lack of representation in the more “visible” areas of the academic and policy debate).
• The perception is one of women’s “tolerance”, more than real inclusion.  In fact, women are even very much appreciated as their presence makes it harder to point fingers against “old-boys-networks”. Women are also often sought because they are more willing to accept time-consuming tasks, like organizing conference.  But, in general, they rarely are involved in decision making processes: e.g. selection of key-note speakers, gender-ratio in the number of person-years as editors.
• The problem is complex and has a ‘cumulative causation’ nature. It has been noted, for instance, that women participation in policy ‘impact’ of research is negligible across domains (e.g. S&TI policies, industrial policies, regional policies). Impact is now in several academic systems (e.g. UK) one of the area of ‘metrics’ used to assess academic performance. More generally, it is also recognised that other metrics such as citations or teaching evaluations strongly penalise women, affecting their overall career progression and public profile. See for e.g. (among hundreds of others):

https://www.hastac.org/blogs/superadmin/2015/01/26/gender-bias-academe-annotated-bibliography-important-recent-studies

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2016/01/student_evaluations_show_bias_against_female_instructors.html

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/19/how-to-get-tenure-if-youre-a-woman-academia-stephen-walt/

• Women are easily dismissed as “endless complaining”: this distorted attitude makes female social scientists feel often like censoring their own writing and apologize for speaking up. This does not encourage serious evaluation and representation of the problem, particularly in social sciences.
• Also, and most importantly, many academic women in senior positions are already the first to be called upon for service work within their own academic institutions. Many academic women at advanced stages of career have and are increasingly called in decision making roles on the basis of gender ‘quotas’. It is not an imposition but women often have no choice, internal regulations on E&D fix quotas for female in management within universities. There is then a problem with overload, as women are still much fewer at present among the high levels of career because of the long-term glass ceiling, so this ends up by creating an impossible triad: more internal admin, more external engagement in the community, same skewed balance of tasks in professional and private life (particularly for women with young children).
• There is a clear mismatch between the demand for women colleagues and the stock of women colleagues (especially at the senior level of career). This has led to an informal perception of ‘she is there because she is a woman’, in most cases very explicitly communicated. The latter is a severe form of discrimination; women are acknowledged on the basis of their gender, rather than for their capabilities and qualities.
• A few decades of awareness is plenty of time to move women completely through the pipeline from students to settled academics. Looking around and not seeing those women, should be regarded as a failure and an urgent and pressing need to adjust the approach.
• Blatant discriminatory behaviour is enduring on this topic. Behavioural change (including support to women self-confidence and fight against unconscious bias) and transformation in informal attitudes and collective perceptions are really difficult tasks: in comparison, putting the demand for equality on the agenda and making it part of the discourse using simply metrics and quotas is, indeed, very easy. Thus, as said also above, many respectable universities in the US and Europe are now obliged to have a female representation of at least 30% on ANY Committee, and ANY kind of procedure involving HR, such as recruitment, promotion, reward, etc. has to adhere to strict formal E&D rules. There are, however, other (typically male) mechanisms, such as lobbying and bargaining, that are hidden, informal and highly (unconsciously or consciously) biased.  
• There is the firm belief that raising awareness is a first step in introducing changes. Reacting to specific unbalanced situations – as it is increasingly done but groups of female academics in Regional Science and other fields) is a first step, but there is still a large proportion of the academic world that believes that there is no such thing as discrimination in academia in general and in our field in particular.
  • An emblematic example of dismissal of problem that then led to some reaction is the following in Nature with respect to the STEM sciences:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7413/full/488590a.html

As a result of the turmoil that that article generated, Nature (who first denied any discrimination) actually revised substantially the policies to commission articles, assign editors, and the numbers today (4 years later) are much more balanced.

• Similar links with reference to all fields of science:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/03/08/gender-bias-in-academe-an-annotated-bibliography/

• What is also needed is for academic men to step forward and champion gender equality for the health of the Regional Science discipline, and for other interrelated fields. Increasing inter- and multi-disciplinarity can help liaise with other communities and strengthen actions. Asking only women to take the lead makes this a "women's problem" as opposed to a social science and societal challenge: thus, a real effort at equality might be assigning some of this work to male academics. It has been noted that the help of senior men in start making gender equality a priority, raises the chances to address effectively this huge issue, that necessarily require a steady and long-term concerted effort.

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2016 BARCELONA WORKSHOP ON REGIONAL AND URBAN ECONOMICS

 Innovation, networks and the geography of knowledge diffusion

Barcelona, October 27^th-28^th 2016

Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Barcelona

Dear Colleagues,

AQR-IREA is pleased to announce the 2016 Barcelona Workshop on Regional and Urban Economics, to be held in Barcelona on October 27^th-28^th, 2016.

The workshop will be focused on innovation and the spatial diffusion of knowledge with emphasis in collaboration networks. Its aim is to bring together researchers in urban and regional economics who are working in topics where the broad concept of the geography of innovation plays a fundamental role. Particular attention will be paid to papers dealing with the mechanisms and actors of knowledge diffusion (knowledge spillovers, networks, technological collaboration, and knowledge relatedness). Although the Workshop will focus on empirical papers, theoretical studies are also welcome.

The keynotes speakers will be:

• Maryann Feldman (Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina)
•   Karen Maguire (Regional Innovation Unit of the OECD Regional Development Policy Division)

Audience:We will accommodate around 8-10 papers, to be presented in plenary sessions that will complement the keynote speakers’ presentation.

Important dates:

• Deadline for papers submission: September 9^th 2016 (Papers should be sent in pdf format to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Extended abstracts or incomplete drafts will also be considered, but full papers will be favoured)
• Notification of acceptance: September 16^th 2016
• Preliminary programme: September 30^th 2016
• Final programme: October 15^th 2016

For further information, please visit the workshop website www.ub.edu/aqr/workshop/2016, see the attached file or contact to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Please, feel free to distribute this announcement. Excuse us for “cross-posting”.

We look forward for your participation at the Workshop!

AQR-IREA Research Group

University of Barcelona

http://www.ub.edu/aqr/

Remember the Madrid days: 31 May-2 June 2017! (International NECTAR Conference)

See below the NECTAR newsletter!

Dear PRSCO colleagues and friends,

The Japan Section of the Regional Science Association International (JSRSAI) is delighted to announce that a new Journal “Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science (AJRS)” will be published from Springer in 2017 April. Editor-in-Chief is Prof. Yoshiro Higano. We hope many submissions of manuscripts which are in relation to regional science of Asia or Pacific regions. Authors are requested to submit manuscripts via Editorial Manager from the URL below.

https://www.editorialmanager.com/ajrs/default.aspx

Authors who had used Editorial Manager of “Studies in Regional Science” are recommended to try “Send Login Details” first. If the name and e-mail address is registered to “Studies in Regional Science”, the password for new journal will be delivered.

Other authors can be delivered ID and password from “Register now.”

Could you distribute this announcement to your colleagues in your section or create a link on your website?

Thank you for your contribution to AJRS in advance.

Best regards,

Hiroyuki Shibusawa

PRSCO Executive Secretary

www.prsco.info

The Honors Committee of the North American Regional Science Council is soliciting nominations for the following awards to be given at this year's annual meeting. Please send your nomination by September 20 to Richard Church at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

1.  Isard Award for Scholarly Achievement in Regional Science

The Walter Isard Award for Scholarly Achievement is named in honor of Professor Walter Isard, father of Regional Science, founder of the Regional Science Association, and a leading scholar in the worldwide Regional Science community. Established in 1994, the award pays tribute to North American regional scientists who have made significant theoretical and methodological contributions to the field of Regional Science throughout their careers.

2.  The Boyce Award for Distinguished Service to Regional Science

This award honors Professor David Boyce, a prominent figure in Regional Science who promoted the Regional Science Association for a number of years and was instrumental in its long term success. The award acknowledges the service contributions that North American members have made to Regional Science organizations.

3.  The Hewings Award for Outstanding Achievement by a "Junior" Faculty

This award is named in honor of Professor Geoffrey J.D. Hewings who over the years introduced numerous graduate students to Regional Science and mentored them as young scholars. The award recognizes distinguished contributions to Regional Science research by North American scholars who have recently completed doctoral studies (within ten years of receiving a Ph.D.).

The list of past awards is posted on the NARSC web site at http://www.narsc.org/newsite/?page_id=30.

Richard Church

Chair, NARSC Honors Committee

Estimados, les adjuntamos invitación al Seminario de Economía Regional organizado por el Banco Ciudad y la Fundación Banco Ciudad. Inscripción a This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Saludos cordiales, 

Pedro Elosegui