Dear RSAI Members and World Congress Participants:

It is with great regret that I have to announce that the June 2020 World Congress in Marrakech is postponed and will not be held this June. While European countries have suffered the recent brunt of the virus, until late last week, the situation in Morocco was quite good in terms of Covid 19 with zero cases, but that has greatly changed. Last weekend, the local organizers asked to cancel the Congress given the rapidly deteriorating conditions on the ground and RSAI Council agreed.

The RSAI  offers the following two options for your fees:

1. The RSAI keeps the money on its bank account, which will remain valid as individual registration fee for next year's world congress;
2. Upon your request, to be sent to the RSAI secretariat, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., with the Executive Director in cc (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), the RSAI refunds all money wired, only retaining the costs for refunding, as follows: 

• The costs of refund for payments received by credit card is none.
• Payments received by wire (bank transfer) will have the followings costs:

Countries in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA): 0.83€

Countries non SEPA available online to transfer: 35.55€
Countries not listed above: the transfer goes with an onsite (bank branch) transfer, and costs 45.95€.

We had expected a fantastic program for the Congress in an excellent location. Our local organizers and RSAI Executive Director had done incredible work and it is a disappointment. We are considering multiple future options, including again holding the World Congress in Morocco in May 2021. Of course, at this stage, we have to let the dust settle to see what plans we can feasibly make for next year. When appropriate, we will have further announcements. I appreciate all of your support for the Congress and Regional Science and take care of yourselves and family.

Mark Partridge

President of RSAI

24-month Month Postdoctoral Fellow – Web-based Geovisualization

The Food and Resource Economics Department and the School of Forest Resources and Conservation (Geomatics Program), at the University of Florida seek to jointly hire a Postdoctoral Fellow to develop a webGIS that will offer a permanent and comprehensive data visualization system for Florida Cooperative Extension and its stakeholders. Candidates should have a strong technical background with expertise in GIS and geovisualization. Knowledge of geographic data and metadata standards and cartographic norms and conventions is expected. Additional details and link to application can be found here.

RSPP Call for Papers on Regional Drivers Effects and Policies of Coronavirus

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading around the world somehow anticipated by the news that announces it. The World Health Organization (WHO) issues daily reports that include the number of people infected by country and by region.

On the one hand, from a medical perspective, critical questions arise regarding the development of vaccines, methods of diagnosis and treatment of patients.

On the hand, there are pressing issues associated with monitoring and prevention that concern everyone and long-term issues related to the birth and spread of this infection naturally related to the structure and interaction of humans in space.

- Are all countries and regions monitoring the spread of the virus efficiently? - Are there places where preventive measures are more effective than in others? Are there cities where medical care is more adequate than in others? Are there policies that have worse net effect for peoples and places?

Regional Science can and should commit to this urgent research questions treating large amounts of data and information to generate useful knowledge for people, journalists, health providers and policy makers.

• RSPP Working Papers on the topic are very much welcome. For that use the template available and submit it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We review and assess the submission of Working Papers and can accept sequential versions of each when new data can provide updated evidences.
• Full papers on the Regional Drivers Effects and Policies of Coronavirus (Covid-19) are also very much needed. For that, use the platform of RSPP https://rsaiconnect.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17577802. The editorial team will put an extra effort on the revision of the papers submitted to this urgent topic.
• Once accepted and edited the papers will be available free on-line for some time and once we get a set of papers of the topic, we will compile them in a Special Issue on the Regional Drivers Effects and Policies of Coronavirus (Covid-19).

The Editorial Team

Useful data

- Relevant Papers:

• Pandemic risk: how large are the expected losses?
• The global spread of 2019-nCoV: a molecular evolutionary analysis
• The Effects of Social Media Use on Preventive Behaviors during Infectious Disease Outbreaks: The Mediating Role of Self-relevant Emotions and Public Risk Perception
• Finding an Accurate Early Forecasting Model from Small Dataset: A Case of 2019-nCoV Novel Coronavirus Outbreak

- Stata format data for the diffusion of the virus in Italian NUTS3 regions that are on a daily basis published by the Ministry of Health - FILE (download)

- Data Bases on the daily infected and deaths related to Corona Virus for the countries of the world and for China based on WHO reports - Last update (27/3/2020 - updated weekly by Catia Azevedo)

• WORLD
• CHINA
• PORTUGAL

The Centre for European Studies of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania will organise between 13 – 15 May 2020 an intensive program for PhD and postdoctoral students on INTRODUCTIVE METHODS AND APPROACHES IN REGIONAL SCIENCE.

The event, supported by the Regional Science Association International (RSAI), will focus on sharing new methodological approaches in regional science methodology and on developing particular abilities and competences required for PhD and postdoctoral students.

The program will benefit from the expertise of distinguished lecturers in regional science:

• Dimitris BALLAS, University of Groningen
• Peter NIJKAMP, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University / Adam Mickiewicz University
• Karima KOURTIT, Jheronimus Academy of Data Science
• Andrea CARAGLIU, Politecnico di Milano
• Tomaz Ponce Dentinho, University of the Azores, Portugal
• Jacques POOT, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The workshops are designed for PhD and postdoctoral students from Eastern Europe from fields related to regional science.

The Intensive program INTRODUCTIVE METHODS AND APPROACHES IN REGIONAL SCIENCE has no participation fee.

The organisers will cover for: Lunch and coffee break throughout the event; Accommodation for four nights in double rooms; Registration for EURINT 2020 Conference and participation to gala dinner.

Applications must be submitted by e-mail until March 31, 2020 and include a short CV and a two-page summary of a research project.

For complete details regarding the eligibility and application process please consult the following website: www.cse.uaic.ro/en/nurturing.htm .

CONTACT PERSON: Local Organising Committee, Bogdan IBANESCU, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Centre for European Studies of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania will organise between 13 – 15 May 2020 an intensive program for PhD and postdoctoral students on INTRODUCTIVE METHODS AND APPROACHES IN REGIONAL SCIENCE.

The event, supported by the Regional Science Association International (RSAI), will focus on sharing new methodological approaches in regional science methodology and on developing particular abilities and competences required for PhD and postdoctoral students.

The program will benefit from the expertise of distinguished lecturers in regional science:

• Dimitris BALLAS, University of Groningen
• Peter NIJKAMP, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University / Adam Mickiewicz University
• Karima KOURTIT, Jheronimus Academy of Data Science
• Andrea CARAGLIU, Politecnico di Milano
• Tomaz Ponce Dentinho, University of the Azores, Portugal
• Jacques POOT, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The workshops are designed for PhD and postdoctoral students from Eastern Europe from fields related to regional science.

The Intensive program INTRODUCTIVE METHODS AND APPROACHES IN REGIONAL SCIENCE has no participation fee.

The organisers will cover for: Lunch and coffee break throughout the event; Accommodation for four nights in double rooms; Registration for EURINT 2020 Conference and participation to gala dinner.

Applications must be submitted by e-mail until March 31, 2020 and include a short CV and a two-page summary of a research project.

For complete details regarding the eligibility and application process please consult the following website: www.cse.uaic.ro/en/nurturing.htm .

CONTACT PERSON: Local Organising Committee, Bogdan IBANESCU, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ERSA Summer School 2020
Regions in transition, what implications for tourism and manufacturing?
14-19 June 2020, University of Lausanne – Sion site,  Switzerland

The European Regional Science Association is pleased to announce in collaboration with The tourism research group of the Institute of Geography and Sustainability (University of Lausanne) the 33rd ERSA Summer School which will be held  from 15 June to 19 June 2020 at the University Campus of Sion, Switzerland

The summer school programme will feature the theme “Regions in transition, what implications for tourism and manufacturing?”.

ERSA Summer School aims to gather young researchers (PhD and post-doctoral students) from Europe with direct training in regional science. Sustainability transition is a new significant challenge for regional science with several issues, needs, opportunities but also threats for regions specialized in tourism or/and manufacturing. Production, innovation and consumption systems, labour markets, transport and mobility are just few examples of elements that are evolving face to this challenge. Therefore, this year’s edition of ERSA Summer School intends to focus on the most relevant concepts as well as analytical models and frameworks to be able to understand implications of transition for tourism and manufacturing.

Within this umbrella, the ERSA Summer School 2020 will particularly address the interaction between empirical, theoretical and policy analysis related to the following classic topics of regional science:
– Regional and urban development, labour markets, policy and governance;
– Regional competitiveness, innovation and productivity;
– Change in location of economic activity;
– Segregation, social, environmental and spatial inequalities;
– Transport, land use and accessibility;
– Population, migration and mobility behaviour;
– Regional finance, fiscal issues, investment or capital markets.

The Summer School will be organised in an intense week of lectures and participants presentations. The pedagogical approach is structured in four moments:

1. Young researchers sessions which are devoted to doctoral and post-doctoral students’ presentations of their work to participants and senior researchers (professors and lecturer).
2. During the morning ex-cathedra lectures are offered by invited Professors. Lectures cover a large variety of issues regarding to recent advances in theory and applications in regional science especially in the particular umbrella theme of the School. They will be structured in four categories of lectures. The first is the “ERSA Award 2019 Lecture” given by Philip McCann – the lecture will be followed in the evening by a Master class given in a relaxed atmosphere where he will talk about his research itinerary. The second category “Hot topic Lectures” will be conducted by confirmed senior scholars from Europe with high reputation on the topic of the Summer School: Marie Delaplace (to be confirmed) from University of Marne-la-Vallée (France), Alessandra Faggian from Gran Sasso Science Institute (Italy), João Romão from University of Algarve (Portugal), Bernhard Truffer University of Bern (Switzerland). The third category, “Regional Science fundamental Lecture”, will address classical themes of regional science. It will be given by Olivier Crevoisier from University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). The fourth and last category consists in a “Methodological workshop” that will be given by Céline Rozenblat from University of Lausanne (Switzerland). Attention has been paid to gender and regional balance when building the program.
3. A field visit is organised.
4. Great importance is given to informal discussions, which are precious ground for experience sharing and network expanding. Within participants but most of all with invited Professors who are asked to stay a few days precisely for that purpose. The organisation aims at creating moments for get-together activities (shared meals, field visits, get-together dinner, thematic walks, serious game session, etc.).

Link to the Summer School website

17th PRSCO Summer Institute 

29-31 July, 2020, RMIT University, Vietnam

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Pacific Regional Science Conference Organization (PRSCO), the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) and RMIT University are pleased to invite you to submit your papers to the 17th PRSCO Summer Institute. The conference will be held from 29-31 July, 2020 at RMIT University in Vietnam. The theme of the conference is “Emerging Technologies in Regional Development”.

The topics of the conference include, but not limited to:

• Blockchain Solutions in Regional Development
• Logistics, supply chain and regional development
• Big Data in regional science
• Emerging challenges for regional development
• Vision and management of sustainable cities
• Energy, development, and sustainability
• Rural and local development
• Accessibility, infrastructure and regional economic growth
• Social capital and regional development
• Agglomeration, clusters, congestion and policy
• Globalization and regional competitiveness
• Migration, cultural networks and regional development
• Social segregation, poverty and social policy
• Climate change and sustainable regional development
• Innovation, knowledge economy and regional development
• Geographical information science and spatial analysis
• Spatial econometrics
• New frontiers in regional science: theory and methodology
• Infrastructure, transportation and communication
• Land use, real estate and housing markets
• Tourism, cultural industries and regional development
• Logistics, supply chain and regional development
• Urban governance and cities regeneration
• City systems and systems of cities
• Advances in I-O and CGE modelling
• Food security
• Global cities
• Southeast Asian regional economic integration

Special Issue

Best papers at the conference will be invited to submit to a special issue in Regional Science Policy & Practice (indexed in SCOPUS and Web of Science). All invited papers will go through the journal’s normal peer review process.

Key Dates:

• Deadline for Abstract Submission: 1 March 2020
• Notification of Paper Acceptance: 25 March 2020
• Deadline for Full Paper Submission: 25 April 2020
• Registration Deadline: 9 May 2020
• Conference: July 29-31, 2020

Submission Instructions:

Presenters are invited to submit an electronic copy (either Microsoft Word or PDF) of their papers (in English) with the file names labelled as the presentation title. Papers must be submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.(link sends e-mail).

All submissions will go through a double-blind peer review process and all presenters are expected to discuss a paper and/or chair a session. 

All information at: https://www.rmit.edu.vn/17th-prsco-summer-institute

The 3rd Annual Intensive Course Program in Urban, Transport, and Environmental Economics

Jan 13 - Feb 7, 2020

Faculty of Economics and Business, UI Depok

For more information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will host the 13th annual Midwest Graduate Student Summit on Applied Economics, Regional and Urban Studies (AERUS) on April 24th – 26th, 2020.

In addition to giving participants the occasion to present their research and receive feedback, this year’s meeting will feature 2 workshops targeted to graduate students, 2 faculty panels on system dynamics and 2 keynote speakers on regional economic systems. 

Workshops:

• Machine learning and big data. Prof. Zhenhua Chen (The Ohio State University).
• Job market season. What to expect? Prof. William Ridley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). 

Keynote speakers:

• Christa Court,  Assistant Professor and Director of the Economic Impact Analysis Program, Food and Resource Economics Department, University of Florida. Christa specializes in regional economic modeling, the energy-water nexus, applied spatial econometrics, environmental accounting, and connections in human and natural systems.
• Zhenhua Chen, Assistant Professor, City and Regional Planning Department, The Ohio State University. His research interests include economic impact assessments of infrastructure investment, disasters and resilience using machine learning, Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models and big data analytics.

Faculty panel:

• Mark Brown, Statistics, Canada
• Sandy Dall’erba, Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
• Brian Deal, Dept. of Landscape Architecture
• Monica Haddad, Dept. of Community and Regional Planning (Iowa State University)
• Maria Chu Librada, Dept. of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
• Bo Li, Dept. of Statistics
• Nicolas Federico Martin, Dept. of Crop Sciences
• William Ridley, Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
• Yilan Xu, Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics

The summit is designed to initiate intellectual dialogue on wide array of research areas and spur future research collaborations among participating young scholars. Work at any stage will be accepted, including completed research, research in progress, and research idea/proposal.

Conference presentations address a variety of areas of growing importance to regional scientists, economists, planners, and geographers. Participants are encouraged to submit a proposal on subjects related to the conference themes: Regional Science, Urban Economics, Labor Economics, Economic Geography, Environmental Economics, Resource Geography, Energy Economics, Health Economics, Housing and Real Estate, Development Economics, Spatial Econometric, Computable General Equilibrium, Agent-Based Modeling, Input-Output Analysis. 

 Participants have to send their abstracts (300 words max), by March 15th, 2020.

For register and submitting abstracts please visit  http://aerus2020.web.illinois.edu/ 

Registration fee will be $60, includes 2 workshops, 2 breakfast, 2 coffee-breaks, 2 lunches and a dinner Saturday night.

Please direct your questions or concerns to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Looking forward seeing you here!

 Local organizing committee

AERUS 2020

This event was cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

RSAI NURTURING YOUNG SCIENTIFIC TALENTS WORKSHOP

New Methods in Regional Science:

Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics

• Coordinators of the project:
  • Abdellatif Khattabi (AMSR) et
  • Karim El Aynaoui (UM6P)

• Scientific Committee:
  • Andrea Caragliu
  • Eduardo Haddad
  • Jean-Claude Thill
  • Karima Kourtit
  • Lakshmi Sivaramakrishnan
  • Peter Nijkamp
  • Saad Badaoui
  • Said Lahssini
  • Sumona Banerjee
  • Tomaz Dentinho

• Organizing Committee:
  • Erdogan H. Ekiz
  • Hicham Mharzi Alaoui
  • Said Lahssini
• Duration:  2 days: May 31 – June 1, 2020
• Venue/Location: UM6P, Benguerir, Morocco (close to Marrakech)
• Expected participants: 20-25 young scientists

The volume of available data for research and policy has more than doubled in the past decade and shows an exponential growth. This new situation is also creating unexpected opportunities for regional science research. In order to seize such opportunities and examine the changing complexity of data structures and volumes, traditional methods in regional science need to be re-thought and re-designed. Data science brings innovative methods, information processes, complex algorithms and new digital systems, with the aim to harvest and extract knowledge from huge and big data using inter alia machine-learning and artificial intelligence techniques. Such techniques will be more than ever needed in modern regional science research. A presentation of such usual approaches will be given in a dedicated workshop in relation to the RSAI World Conference in Marrakech (Morocco).

This workshop will give an overview of methods, models and computational architectures related to the above topics. The workshop will involve lectures and practical sessions related to theory, tools and practices, case studies and student’s presentations. It will familiarize participants with new machine learning techniques, supervised and unsupervised learning, segmentation methods and deep learning. Participants will also gain experience in organizing data using traditional methods as well as more modern statistical and econometric approaches.

This two days’ workshop on “New Methods in Regional Science: Data science, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics”, meant for young scientists in Morocco and elsewhere in Africa and the whole world.  It will be organized by the Moroccan Regional Science Association (AMSR) and the University Mohamed 6 Polytechnic (UM6P), in close association with the RSAI World Congress that will take place in Marrakech, Morocco, from June 2 – 5, 2020.

The workshop is offered to Master Students, PhD Candidates and early career researchers, with a view to enhancing their knowledge, their networking abilities, cooperation and start-up of their professional career. The meeting venue creates appropriate conditions, place and space to provide young scientists with a substantive training for their efficient and successful scientific career development, for the presentation of their new work, and for receiving feedback from inspiring senior scholars and from their peers.

The workshop’s organization cooperates with higher education institutions from Morocco and other countries. The workshop will create a multidisciplinary and multinational scientific environment and promises valuable scientific results in the form of new common research project proposals, publication outputs, support of young researchers, and development of scientific cooperation. Candidates have to apply for participation in this workshop.

The selection of participants for the workshop will be based on the quality of their applications.  Applications for the workshop should include an outline of the research interest and motivation of Master or PhD students; brief description of the presentation that will be delivered; institutional affiliation and current position; reference from the home institution. The plan is to nurture new talent of about 5 Master Students, 10 PhD candidates and 5 early career researchers.

POTENTIAL KEY SPEAKERS (TENTATIVE)

• Theory and practice
  • Jean-Claude Thill
  • Michael Goodchild (tbc)
  • Carlo de Weijer (tbc)
  • John Osth (tbc)
  • Laurie Schintler
  • Parvathy Krishnan
• Case studies:
  • Eduardo Haddad
  • Peter Nijkamp
  • Karima Kourtit
  • Thomaz Dentinho
  • Said Lahssini and Hicham Mharzi Alaoui
  • Saad Badaoui

More information at: http://amsr.ma/RSAI_NT/