The Gran Sasso Science Institute in L’Aquila, Italy has launched a new Discussion Paper Series in Regional Science and Economic Geography.
With an article that relates the spatiality of COVID-19 to the structure of local economies, the GSSI area of Social Sciences launches a Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography (RSEG), which aims at providing a forum for debating initial research outcomes of high quality standard.

It hosts contributions on a wide range of topics within and across regional science and economic geography, encouraging a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives on socio-economic phenomena with an inherently spatial nature. Each article undergoes a light and fast review process managed by a Scientific Committee within the GSSI area of Social Sciences (for this and other info about how to submit a contribution, visit the website).
The Discussion Papers address some of the most urgent issues and trends of the 21st century, like socio-spatial (income/wealth) inequalities, migration flows and labour mobility, disasters (natural, environmental and health) and resilience, globalisation vs. localisation patterns, the political economy of urban and regional development, the geography of innovation and entrepreneurship, tech-driven urban and regional economies (e.g. platform urbanism), the shifting location of economic activity and new technologies, just to mention a few.

The series is inaugurated by the paper “The geography of COVID-19 and the structure of local economies: The case of Italy”, in which Andrea Ascani, Alessandra Faggian and Sandro Montresor (GSSI Social Sciences) develop an analysis of the relationship between the geography of COVID-19 and the structure of local economies, by focusing on the case of Italian provinces. In order to explain the striking spatial unevenness of COVID-19, the paper hypothesises and offers preliminary evidence that locations specialised in economic activities that are characterised by high geographical concentration might be subject to relatively higher infections due to the agglomeration advantages characterising these industries.

More details and submission guidelines can be found here

Editors: Rafael Garduño-Rivera (School of Business & Economics, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico); Haoying Wang (Department of Business and Technology Management, New Mexico Tech, USA)

Today, every region across the globe experiences different issues among its international borders. For example, the US-Mexico border region (quite different to the US-Canada and the Mexico-Guatemala borders), the Kashmir region in Asia, the UK and its relationship with the EU (and Ireland), the North-South Koreas, Greece and Cyprus, Colombia and Venezuela, and the list goes on. International borders exist to protect domestic markets while facilitating cross-border trade and communications. From an economic perspective, both sides along the border would benefit from opportunities associated with an open border. The reality often finds a situation being complicated by various socio-economic factors from policies to social norms.
Regional conflicts along international borders have become a major externality of the globalization process. In the meantime, economic and business development opportunities exist along international borders. How to resolve the conflicts and transition to binational coordination and development has been an interesting topic to academics, NGOs focusing on international development, and the concerned public.

This collection expects to attract studies from different parts of the world to learn about the economic and business development conditions along different international borders and how each country is dealing with or taking advantage of them. The collection will enrich our knowledge of the policy landscape and the private enterprise in each of the unique situation. New insights can be drawn to provide inputs to forge policies facilitating cross-border development.

While we are in the era of globalization, a lot of economic and business development opportunities are left unexplored along international borders. This collection will raise awareness of these problems and explore the reasons behind the status quo. An open and in-depth discussion can help to identify the influential factors and support policymaking to tap into the economic and business development potential along international borders. This collection seeks disciplinary perspectives from regional economics, international trade, entrepreneurship, environmental and natural resources economics, and public policy. It is also open to interdisciplinary studies.

Research is welcomed across the following areas, and others:

• The economics of migration
• Cross-border trade
• Port economy and agglomeration along international borders
• Environmental and natural resources management along international borders
• Border-region economic development
• The economic impact of cross-border illegal activities
• Border tourism and day trips
• Poverty and inequality in border regions
• Spatial economic analysis related to border effects

We are explicitly excluding studies (1) concerning border wars and political conflicts; (2) movements of peoples across international borders; (3) cross-border international aid. While these topics are definitely of policy importance and research interest, they usually fall out of the realm of economic and business development.

The collection accepts theoretical, empirical, and policy studies in the form of original research paper and review paper. In-depth case studies may be considered. The author(s) are encouraged to communicate with the guest editors before submitting a case study. All manuscripts should follow the journal’s submission guidelines.

This is a rolling collection and submissions will be accepted until the end of May 2021. Authors who wish to discuss ideas for articles are encouraged to contact the guest editors directly before submission. Full papers must be submitted via the journal’s submission system. Submissions by email will not be considered.

The website for the special issue can be found here.

Dear RSAI members,

It is a pleasure to reach out to all of you in these difficult months. As you may know by now, RSAI decided to postpone the 2020 World Congress, which would have taken place on Marrakech on June 2/5, 2020. This and other news, as well as many interesting articles on Real Estate and on the spatial implications of the COVID-19 emergency, are featured in the new issue of the RSAI Newsletter (https://www.regionalscience.org/images/PDF/Newsletter%202020%20May.pdf), skillfully edited by Martijn Smit and Graham Clarke.

The Newsletter, and the many initiatives described in it as well as on our website (https://www.regionalscience.org/), testify that RSAI maintains a strong link with our larger community. While waiting to meet each other in person hopefully soon, I hope you enjoy reading this news.

Kind regards,

Andrea Caragliu

Executive Director, Regional Science Association International

Call for Papers  - Postponed deadlines

Romanian Journal of Regional Science (rjrs.ase.ro) invites contributions for the special issue entitled ”Uncovering territorial inequalities and spatial justice in the EU”, under the auspices of the Horizon 2020 project IMAJINE – Integrative Mechanisms for Addressing Spatial Justice  and Territorial Inequalities in Europe, with Ana Vinuela, University of Oviedo, Spain and Maria Plotnikova, Aberystwyth University, UK as Guest Editors.

The special issue is planned to be launched by mid-December, 2020. Submission deadline: October 11 at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The problem of territorial inequality is especially important for the EU. The European project has been a long-running process of the coming together of the European states into a single territorial unit. Territorial inequalities have long persisted in the EU. Following a period of convergence in the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2008 financial crisis had widened regional economic disparities in Europe. Territorial inequalities have been targets of policy intervention via regional policy and more recently, Cohesion policy with the objective to  promote more balanced and more sustainable territorial development.

Policy intervention is deemed necessary because territorial inequalities in economic performance may over-time lead to divergence in levels and trajectories of development among regions, preventing lagging regions from reaching their potential and necessitating fiscal transfers from richer ones. Territorial inequalities engender migration flows from poorer to richer regions contributing to cumulative causation behind the persistence of inequalities. Territorial inequalities in unemployment and health bring about clusters of multi-dimensional deprivation, increasing reliance on welfare disbursements and public provision of services.  Moreover perception of territorial inequalities in ‘lagging’ or ‘left-behind’ regions may foster what has been termed as the “geography of discontent” expressed in grass-roots movements, support for extreme political parties and anti-establishment voting behaviour (e.g. Brexit vote outcome in the UK). 

The perspective of spatial justice offers a new angle for analysing and ultimately tackling territorial inequality.  Inequalities may be understood as differences in opportunities available for individuals expressed through access to (e.g. education, jobs, healthcare, services, and, ultimately social mobility) that differ across space and where spacial differences in access interact with its socio-economic determinants such as class, gender, age, ethnicity and others.

Understanding territorial inequalities therefore requires greater attention to regional and local socio-economic contexts. Doing so brings to light the interrelationship between economic inequality and other location-specific factors such as differential capacity of regions and localities to sustain economic activity, absorb economic shocks and respond to policy intervention, including Cohesion policies.

We invite papers addressing the issues of territorial inequalities and conceptualization of spatial justice from any disciplinary area.

It is a pleasure to inform you that the issue nº. 55 (2020) of our journal (Portuguese Review of Regional Studies) is now available online. You can accede to it using the link:

http://www.apdr.pt/siteRPER/EN/revistaEN.html

RSPP Call for Paper

Special Issue on Spatial Resilience and the Border Regions of Europe

One of the least exploited research directions in regional science is the investigation of spatial patterns in relation to resilience, as well as of the role that geographical positioning, respectively the interaction between space and socio-economic activities, play in fostering and enhancing resilience, especially in border regions.

Some key research questions arise as being particularly important for development policies: Are there spatial differences in the resilience outcomes, and have various regions different responses to economic shocks along with their ability to adapt to new economic circumstances, depending on the geographical positioning of a region? Are regions with external borders less resilient to economic, environmental, social or political shocks than regions without any national borders, or with borders that are internal to the EU? Is the impact of a shock on border regions different from the impact on domestic regions? Or does the impact differ on peripheral regions vs. central ones? Can cross-border cooperation reduce border effects and transform borders from a disadvantage into an opportunity? What role do physical, administrative, economic, cultural, institutional, or political barriers have on the resilience of border regions?

This special issue on Spatial Resilience and the Border Regions of Europe aims at responding to some of key challenges for border regions, collecting a set of studies on:

• The principles and effects of spatial resilience (be it cities, regions, rural areas, spatial labor markets, migration, transport systems, public facilities etc.);
• How to better connect and inter-connect the territorial dimension with the economic, social or the ecological issues of resilience in the borderline regions (both external and internal);
• The systemic vulnerability, territorial planning, growth patterns, urban development, quality of life and demographic aspects of cities in the border regions;
• The core-periphery structural differentiation or evolutionary paradigms connected with the resilience capacity;
• Border effects on resilience and the role of cross-border cooperation;
• New approaches on spatial dynamics, from the perspective of the equilibrating forces inherent in regional and urban systems.

Case studies on Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Leetonia, Latvia, Greece, Turkey, Russia and Finland, but also on the internal “borders” of EU will be more that welcomed.

Papers should be submitted to the regular review process of the journal (https://rsaiconnect.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17577802) until July 15, 2020.

The coordinators of the Special Issue:

Gabriela Carmen PASCARIU (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Karima KOURTIT (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Ramona TIGANASU (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Special Issues

The GSSI is about to launch "The Social Sciences webinar series" starting on May 5, 2020, with the intent of spurring the debate about key topics in Regional Science and Economic Geography and keep us intellectually active, while staying safe and physically distanced as this difficult lockdown time requires. The sessions will feature key scholars in the field coming from some of the best universities all over the world.
The webinars are free and public. For registration and information on how to participate and intervene please write to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Link: https://www.gssi.it/communication/news-events/item/9402-research-doesn-t-stop-new-webinar-series-at-gssi?fbclid=IwAR2QkaK4FMz-0m9TssI_mxKDQw3awp0ugykFdFTARV-G78Wqqto4O3gmQm0

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