Regional Science Policy and Practice

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Special Issue Theme: “Policy Challenges and Economic Sustainability during Sudden Pandemic Outbreak”

In the present scenario, a sudden outburst of pandemic diseases can create a profound and serious impact on the global economy, driving policymakers towards finding new and innovative ways to retain economic stability. These diseases when left uncontrolled can initiate a persistent and major-public health problem all over the world with severe consequences. Even with well-determined precaution measures and unremitting lockdown, this sort of epidemic disease often results in a global uncertainty with a huge pressure of the economic crisis.  The impacts of this outbreak include economic loss in various forms, which ranges from mortality to the diverse effects on productivity. Here, the most miserable part is that economic loss due to production efficiency and economic returns are considerably greater than the mortality. On the other side, health hazards relating to this epidemic accompanied by fear and panic, further results in numerous economic risks with a complete blockage of global enterprise and supply chain management facilities.

Economic risks due to pandemics are nontrivial and require careful policy planning and control measures. The consequences of the outbreak are highly indeterminate and have various effects on the economy. Certain sectors such as pharmaceutical industries can financially benefit more, while the other sectors may suffer inexplicably. It is inevitable that vulnerable populations especially the poor people become the victim as they have insufficient access to healthcare facilities with reduced income. Several factors such as trade disproportion, exchange rate movement, variation in market interest, and many more confound the process of policy management during a pandemic outbreak. However, the relationship between pandemic diseases and policy uncertainty can be indirect, but it is real. Most of the complex policy uncertainties can be easily tackled, if there is a cooperative response from a range of departments and government organizations. Hence, developing sustainable policies to deal with improved sanitation, provision of clean water facilities, better urban planning, and infrastructures can lead to an ideal solution as they decrease the rate of recurrence of human contact with pathogenic organisms. Eventually, establishing appropriate policies to build stronger health systems and supporting proper nutrition can empower human health with lesser prone to infectious diseases. However, construction of such policies and maintaining economic stability possess a greater amount of risk that impedes the growth of the country. In this context, this special issue intends to bring out various policy challenges and its appropriate solutions to effectively maintain economic stability during the pandemic situation.

Tentative Topics:

• Effective policy planning and outbreak readiness
• Pandemics: risk, impacts, and mitigation over the society and its preventive measures
• Tackling economic crisis during pandemic situations and policy planning
• Policy challenges during pandemic situations and regulatory mechanisms
• Sustainable policy planning with diversely affected economic sectors
• Impact of demographic trends towards policy planning during pandemic situations
• Effective policy planning measures to meet current needs and resources with future requirements
• Policy evaluation frameworks and tools for sustainable policy development during pandemic situations
• Decision making architectures and design methodologies for long-term policy planning and implementation
• Combined effect of economic crisis and infectious disease control measures on economic sustainability
• Disruptions due to pandemic diseases and their financial consequences

Important Date: Webinar with draft papers April 14, 2021

Guest Editorial Team:

Dr. Carlos Enrique Montenegro Marin received the Diploma of Advanced Studies degree from the Pontifical University of Salamanca, in 2008, the M.Sc. degree in Information and Communication Systems from the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, and the Ph.D. degree in Systems and Computer Services for the Internet from the University of Oviedo, Asturias, Spain, in 2012. He was classified with the highest recognition of research by Colciencias in 2017 (Senior Researcher). He is the director of the GIIRA research group of the University District, a group that also received the highest recognition by Colciencias. He is currently a Systems Engineer. His skills and expertise are in the areas of Java Programming, Cloud Computing, Web Development, Object-Oriented Programming, Grid Computing, LMS, Virtualization, Software Engineering, and Linux Administration.

Dr. Paulo Alonso Gaona Garcia received his Ph.D in Information and Knowledge Engineering in Computer Science from University of Alcalá in 2014 and Masters in Information and Information Sciences Communications, Teleinformatics from Francisco José de Caldas District University in 2007. He was working as Professor and Project Advisor in National Pedagogical University. He is currently working as Director of Engineering Research in Francisco José de Caldas District University. His research and publication topics are in the areas of Internet of Things, ad hoc Networks, Error Statistics, Power Consumption, Quality of Service, Telecommunication Power Management, and Wireless Sensor Networks.

Dr. Edward Rolando Nuñez Valdez is working as a Professor at the University of Oviedo in Spain. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Oviedo in Computer Engineering, Master Degree in Software Engineering from the Pontifical University of Salamanca and B.S. in Computer Science from Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. He has participated in several research projects; He has taught computer science at various schools and universities and has worked in software development companies and IT consulting for many years. He has published several articles in international journals and conferences. His research interests include Web Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Recommendation Systems, Modeling Software with DSL and MDE.