Special Issue proposal for “Regional Science Policy & Practice”

Social economy and entrepreneurship in urban and local development - Theory, policy and practices of community engagement

Guest Editors:

Social economy and social entrepreneurship are no longer just an alternative development perspective or a symbolic, ethical or solidarity issue of the contemporary world. Social involvement in various spheres of communities, economy, or ecology is becoming more and more real and meaningful in urban and local policy and development. The term development means not only progress in the sense of a market economy but development as an increase of spaces of socioeconomic-ecological synergy, social and institutional trust, economics of inclusion, equality and equilibrium in all aspects of humanity.

We observe emerging critical currents as part of the theory and practice of entrepreneurship, business models innovation, (global) value chains and local economic (eco)systems. These evolving concepts in conjunction with prevailing uncertainty caused by epidemic threats, humanitarian crises, energy challenges, or environmental changes must result in ever faster socioeconomic development’s paradigm shifts. The concept of development should increasingly mean responsible transformation of existing lifestyles, social and business practices, and local and urban policies and planning.

Catalysts for changing existing paradigms include the emergence of social economy and social entrepreneurship as a conceptual-material frame for engaging local communities in real transformative activities for creating social values. These social and institutional practices are often linked to the level and specificity of social capital, cultural capital or habitus in Bourdieu's approach. The progression of community engagement in urban and local development in various entrepreneurial forms is also determined by inter-institutional play and organizational field structures in terms of DiMaggio and Powell's conceptualization.

In different parts of the world, there are different types of prevailing problems and different, often specific, ways of solving them. Increasingly, the potential and power to solve these challenges is linked to the level of community activism, in correlation with cultures of social practices, policy, and territorial governance.

This compels scientific exploration, which increasingly needs to be interdisciplinary, innovative and stereotype-breaking. The purpose of this special issue is to present innovative and/or critical research on the multi-level relationship between the emergence of social economic practices, particularly social entrepreneurship, and urban and rural development in different regions of the world. With this intention, we invite papers including contributions on the following main themes:

1. Conceptualization of social economy and entrepreneurship in territorial development based on grounded academic concepts in various academic traditions such as regional science, sociology, economics, theories of local and regional development, urban and rural geography, (neo)institutional theory, business studies, political science, and others.
2. Social economy and entrepreneurship for sustainable development and territorial resilience based on the legacy of regional science, theories and practices of local and regional innovation (eco)systems in integration with social sciences optics, environmental studies, ecology or business and organizational approaches, and others.
3. Nexus of territorial governance, local and regional planning, social entrepreneurship and community engagement in the context of exploring the interrelationships and impact between policy, governance and practice of local and regional planning and the performance of social economy actors and strengthening of community engagement.
4. Social innovations and leadership in the context of significant transformation from product and technological innovations to innovations in social processes, communities’ trust building, and participatory and cooperative culture. Social innovations also include new forms of volunteering, development of public services, or new forms of increasing citizen participation in urban and rural governance.
5. Operational features of social entrepreneurship like organizational and legal forms of social economy actors and/or performance levels as global social entrepreneurs or local community social entrepreneurs. Different countries have different legal frameworks for their social economy and of course different economic and planning backgrounds, so comparative studies between different regions of the world or countries are very welcome.
6. Case studies and best practices of community engagement in urban and rural development. The presentation of specific practices of communities' actions facing humanitarian crises seems particularly important in today's times. Just as important are daily and systematic communities’ activities at the very local level such as assistance to marginalized groups or food and medical aid in various parts of the world.

We invite papers from many perspectives and fields of academic research and from around the world. A variety of research approaches, both qualitative, quantitative or highly encouraged comparative studies and case studies, will be appreciated.

Authors are invited to submit an abstract by the February 28, 2023 to Piotr Pachura (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.); Aneta Pachura (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.); Neil Reid (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Kvetoslava Matlovičová (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). You will be informed about the status of your abstract on or around March 15, 2023. Authors of selected abstracts will be expected to submit full papers no later than 30 September 2023, and publication expected in Spring/Summer 2024, following the peer review process.

Investigaciones Regionales - Journal of Regional Research has recently published the Issue volume 53, the second volume corresponding to 2022, the year in which the journal of the Spanish Association of Regional Science celebrates its twentieth anniversary.

This 2022 the journal has been positioned in the First Quartile (Q1) of Scopus, and we have known that in 2023 we will have receive a Journal Impact Factor in the Web of Science Core Collection of Clarivate.

Below you will find the summaries of the papers published in this volume, which can be accessed at https://investigacionesregionales.org/en/revista/numero-53-verano-2022/

Nicholas Charron, Víctor Lapuente, Monika Bauhr, Paola Annoni

Change and Continuity in Quality of Government: Trends in subnational quality of government in EU member states

Despite massive investments, studies suggest that anticorruption efforts often times fail and that countries and regions with historically deficient quality of government tend to be stuck in a vicious cycle of high levels of corruption and inadequate public service delivery. However, this study suggests that despite the stickiness of subnational quality of government, regional quality of government does shift over time. Using the 2021 European Quality of Government Index (EQI), and comparing the results to previous rounds of this survey, we show that there has indeed been noticeable shifts in the regional level of Quality of Government both within countries and across time. Overall, we find a slight increase in the perceived quality of government of European regions compared with 2017. However, some regions have evaded the positive trend, most notably in Poland and Hungary, whose response to the pandemic – probably not coincidentally – has involved important infringements of democratic rights and institutions. These changes in Quality of government call for a close mapping of the trends within countries and across regions and a focus on their determinants. To this end, the paper also serves as an introduction to the use of 2021 European Quality of Government (EQI) index, which is the most comprehensive survey to date to measure perceptions of subnational quality of government with a total of 129,000 respondents in 208 NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 regions and all EU 27-member state countries.

Keywords: Europe; regions; corruption; quality of government; time series; measurement; Covid-19

Wojciech Dyba, Eleonora Di Maria, Maria Chiarvesio

Actions fostering the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies in European regions

Industry 4.0, a concept comprising a range of promising innovations enabled by the recent advancements in digital technologies, has become a priority of industrial policy in many European countries and regions. In this paper, we present actions undertaken by regional organisations (including the so-called Digital Innovation Hubs), fostering the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies. Using examples from Germany, Italy and Poland, we show actions that enable the creation of general conditions for such implementations and help companies develop an individual strategy for adopting Industry 4.0 innovations.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; support; actions; regions; Digital Innovation Hubs

Domingo Rodríguez Benavides, Owen Eli Ceballos Mina

Regional Convergence Clubs in Colombia 2000-2016: A Flexible Analysis by Provinces

Economic convergence studies in Colombia have shown mixed results. It is relevant to provide evidence that allows to focus public policy efforts to reduce the gaps between the country’s regions. This paper using Colombian departments and the district capital applies the Phillips and Sul (2007) test to evaluate the hypothesis of total convergence versus the presence of regional clubs in GDP per capita in 2000-2016. We found evidence of divergence for the entire country but multiple steady states and departmental convergence clubs if the main mining regions are excluded from the analysis.

Keywords: Economic-growth; convergence; nonlinear models; Colombia

Friederike Seifert

The Income-Inequality Relationship within US Metropolitan Areas 1980-2016

Economic growth might both increase and decrease income inequality, also at the city level. This paper examines the income-inequality relationship within US metropolitan areas and finds that it changes over time. A higher average income per capita level was associated with a lower inequality level in earlier years, but this association vanished later. For the 1980-2000 panel, increases in the average income per capita are associated with decreases in inequality. In contrast, increases in the average income per capita are asso-ciated with increases in inequality in the 2006-2016 panel. The obtained results hint at polarization re-sulting from technological change substituting middle-skill routine tasks.

Keywords: Inequality; income; metropolitan areas; United States

Felipe Torres Torres, Agustín Rojas Martínez

Food security at the crossroads of regional inequalities in Mexico

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the regional dimensions of food security, seen as a structural problem of development in Mexico during the period 2000-2020. The hypothesis is that the commercial opening implemented in the country under a framework of asymmetric economic development, widened its socio-territorial inequalities and with it the food insecurity gap. To investigate this phenomenon, we applied the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Dalenius-Hodges stratification methods, with which we built a measurement index at municipal and regional scales. The results obtained indicate that, seen both by number of regions and population proportion, more than half of Mexicans face some degree of food insecurity. Reversing this situation implies deploying a food policy aimed at recovering self-sufficiency in the production of basic grains and guaranteeing access to food, mainly by improving income among the population located in the ranges of poverty and extreme poverty.

Keywords: Food security; regional inequalities; agricultural policy; municipal and regional food security index; principal component analysis method

María Soledad Campos Lucena, África Ruiz-Gándara, María de Magdala Pérez Nimo, Francisco Javier Ortega Irizo, Francisco Velasco Morente

Nivel de eficiencia del uso de recursos por las organizaciones públicas. Caso: Sistemas Sanitarios Españoles

Objetivos: Con este trabajo se persigue detectar, en el sistema sanitario español, que servicios sanitarios son eficientes y cuáles no, así como proponer medidas correctoras que permitan a los servicios sanitarios ineficientes alcanzar la eficiencia.
Metodología: Este trabajo aplica la metodología del análisis envolvente de datos (DEA), que permite obtener las eficiencias natural y gerencial, así como las desviaciones de las unidades ineficientes con relación a las eficientes, y proponer medidas correctoras que impliquen únicamente modificaciones presupuestarias (natural) o cambios en las políticas de gestión de recursos (gerencial).
Resultados: A través de las eficiencias, o la falta de ellas, los servicios sanitarios de las 17 comunidades autónomas españolas se clasifican en cuatro grupos: Con eficiencia natural o gerencial alta, media-alta, media-baja o baja.
Conclusiones: La falta de eficiencia natural puede corregirse con una mayor dotación presupuestaria, la falta de eficiencia gerencial con un recorte presupuestario y cambios en las políticas de gestión de recursos. Esta tendencia contraria de los ajustes es precisamente la que dota este trabajo del interés y novedad con respectos a otros que aplican el DEA en sectores diferentes como aquellos que estudian el impacto en el medioambiente de los consumos de recursos. Otro aspecto importante de este estudio es la posibilidad de aplicarlo a otros países con estructuras políticas similares.

Palabras clave: Análisis envolvente de datos; eficiencia natural; eficiencia gerencial; análisis clúster; Sistema Nacional de Salud

Leonardo J. Mastronardi, Carlos A. Romero, Sebastián N. González

Interregional analysis using a bi-regional input-output matrix for Argentina

This paper presents a regional case study using a Bi-Regional Input-Output (BRIO) matrix of Buenos Aires City (BAC) and the Rest of Argentina (ROA), constructed from the Argentinian Input-Output matrix. A hybrid approach was applied to obtain the BRIO matrix, which combines pure non-survey methods with matrix-balancing methods like RAS or Cross-Entropy. Once the BRIO matrix was obtained, our study has focused on analyzing the BAC regional structure and the interconnections between regions. We have also estimated the regional and national carbon footprint for the BAC and Argentina, respectively. Results show that service and industry sectors play an important role in the economy of BAC and some of them have strong interregional spillover effects over the rest of the country. In addition, the results also show that sectors on BAC with the highest regional multipliers are also the ones with highest emissions.

Keywords: Interregional input-output model; carbon footprint; bi-regional input-output tables; location quotients; cross entropy

To contact Us and Submit Manuscripts:

Investigaciones Regionales – Journal of Regional Research

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

The article will be sent through the portal Open Journal System (OJS) of the Spanish Repository of Science and Technology (RECYT): https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/IR/login 

ISSN: 1695-7253     E-ISSN: 2340-2717

2023/2024 RSAI World Congress | Request for Proposals

The Regional Science Association International (RSAI) aims to hold a world congress at least once every two years. Unfortunately, the last congress – in Marrakech in 2020 – had to be postponed to 2021, and held online, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. RSAI considers world congresses an important instrument for furthering its mission of global advancement of regional analysis and related spatial and areal studies for the benefit of society.

The RSAI calls for proposals to host a world congress in 2023/2024. Potential hosts are RSAI Supra-Regionals, Sections or Members that have a proven track record of hosting conferences and related events. A world congress may be held concurrently with another event or as a standalone event. Proposals must be submitted by Monday, October 31, 2022, 23:59 CET.  Proposals are evaluated by the RSAI Council. A decision will be made at the RSAI Council meeting to be held in Montreal, during the annual NARSC meeting; depending on the quality of the proposals received, the RSAI reserves the right not to organize a congress in 2023, or to propose the organization for 2024. This document outlines the application process, organization and expected outcomes regarding the 2023/2024 world congress.

Prior RSAI World congresses

1980 1st – Cambridge Mass. (Harvard University), USA

1984 2nd – Rotterdam (Erasmus University), Netherlands

1989 3rd – Jerusalem (Kibbutz Ramat Rachel), Israel

1992 4th – Palma de Mallorca, Spain

1996 5th – Tokyo (Rissho University), Japan

2000 6th – Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland

2004 7th – Port Elizabeth, South Africa

2008 8th – Sao Paulo, Brazil

2012 9th – Timisoara, Romania

2018 10^th Goa, India

2021 11^th Marrakech, Morocco (online only)

Criteria for a successful 2023/2024 world congress

1. The world congress should aim to have significant participation from members of Sections of all four supra-regional organisations – ERSA, LARSA, NARSC and PRSCO.
2. The conference should also endeavor to attract regional scientists resident in countries in which no RSAI Section has yet been established. Subsidies may be available to selected applicants for participation through RSAI’s “Building Bridges” programme.
3. The 2023/2024 World Congress may be held as a standalone event. Alternatively, proposals may suggest to organise it jointly or “back-to-back” with another event. Such a joint or back-to-back event could be an RSAI Section meeting, a supra-regional congress, or an event held jointly with other organizations with similar objectives or networks.
4. The proposed dates of the congress must be such that they do not clash with other events that aim to attract the same regional science community, unless a joint conference is envisaged. The organizers will consult with the RSAI President and the RSAI executive Director in order to identify a mutually acceptable schedule for the event.
5. The conference should be held at an easily accessible location in a globally accessible city.
6. Accommodation should be available at the conference venue (when the conference is held at a hotel or convention centre). Alternatively, a range of affordable accommodation should be available within 15 minutes walking from the venue.
7. The congress should include plenary sessions of interest to the global scientific community. The overall conference theme and the selection of keynote speakers should reflect this. Of course, local perspectives and concerns may be interwoven with global perspectives and concerns.
8. Proposals should include initiatives to encourage participation from developing countries and from other countries in which no RSAI Sections have yet been established. RSAI can assist financially in meeting this objective through its “Building Bridges” programme but other funding initiatives (e.g. subsidies for participating postgraduate students) are also encouraged.
9. The programme could also include one or more workshops for professional development of emerging scholars and postgraduate students, who may not be in a position to contribute a full paper to the formal scientific programme.
10. The working language of the congress is English but proposals may include arrangements for simultaneous translation of plenary sessions where this is deemed to be desirable.
11. Proposals should include a risk assessment regarding contingencies that could impact on the viability and success of the congress. Ways in which potential risks can be managed should be outlined.
12. A detailed financial plan providing details on the economic aspects of the congress should also be submitted along with the candidature.

Organization of the congress

1. For the services it provides, RSAI Office charges a commission equal to 20% of all registration fees received. The remaining registration revenue is transferred to the legal entity representing the LOC. Any anticipated sponsorship monies will be included in the budget.
2. All arrangements for the organization of the World Congress will be formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU will be signed by the President of RSAI, the Executive Director, the Chair of the LOC and the person representing the legal entity through which the LOC operates.

Application Process

1. Proposals should address each of the 12 criteria for hosting the 2023/2024 world congress outlined above. However, it is understood that some of the information provided by the congress proposers (such as names of suggested keynote speakers, sponsorship, etc.) will be tentative at the time the proposal is submitted. 
2. Proposals should include a list of the key people involved in organizing the congress, a draft congress plan (including dates, location and schedule), a detailed draft budget (including a schedule of registration fees) and a suggested range of accommodations and charges.
3. The acceptance of a proposal by RSAI Council does not constitute a binding agreement between the two parties. The subsequently drawn up MOU, which is guided by the proposal, will constitute a binding agreement.
4. Proposals should be submitted by email to the Executive Director (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; cc: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Monday, October 31, 2022, 23:59 CET.
5.  A decision regarding the 2023/2024 World Congress will be made by RSAI Council during the meeting to be held at the forthcoming NARSC congress in Montreal.

ISSUE INFORMATION

Free Access

Issue Information

Pages: 695-696 | First Published: 13 September 2022

INTRODUCTION

Regional development in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia

Katarzyna Kopczewska

Pages: 697-698 | First Published: 13 September 2022

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Spatial spillover effects of corruption in Asian countries: Spatial econometric approach

Masoud Khodapanah, Zahra Dehghan Shabani, Mohammad Hadi Akbarzadeh, Mahboubeh Shojaeian

Pages: 699-717 | First Published: 31 October 2020

Key conditions for Euroregions development at external EU borders: A case study of the Polish–Belarusian borderland

Tomasz Studzieniecki, Andrzej Jakubowski, Beata Meyer

Pages: 718-739 | First Published: 25 March 2021

A new planning instrument for urban development in Hungary: The modern cities program

Dávid Fekete

Pages: 740-758 | First Published: 21 April 2021

Harmonization of Russian supply chain management standards with EU requirements

Viktor Shestak, Viktor Konstantinov, Vladislav Govorov, Evgenia Budko, Oleg Volodin

Pages: 759-777 | First Published: 21 April 2021

Rural area sustainable development strategies on the basis of a cluster approach

Rasul Gusmanov, Eugene Stovba, Alfiya Kuznetsova, Iskander Gusmanov, Timur Taipov, Gulnara Muhametshina, Liana Akhmetova

Pages: 778-795 | First Published: 13 September 2021

The resilience of Russian Arctic cities 1989–2017

Andrey Polyachenko

Pages: 796-825 | First Published: 29 March 2022

INTRODUCTION

Night light indicators of regional economic activity

Katarzyna Kopczewska

Pages: 826-827 | First Published: 13 September 2022

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Analysis of spatial inequality using DMSP‐OLS nighttime‐light satellite imageries: A case study of Thailand

Krittaya Sangkasem, Nattapong Puttanapong

Pages: 828-849 | First Published: 22 December 2020

Mapping poverty rates in Chile with night lights and fractional multinomial models

Simone Cecchini, Giovanni Savio, Varinia Tromben

Pages: 850-876 | First Published: 25 March 2021

Nighttime‐lights satellite imagery reveals hotspots of second home mobility in rural Russia (a case study of Yaroslavl Oblast)

Alexander Sheludkov, Alexandra Starikova

Pages: 877-890 | First Published: 10 June 2021

Predicting intra‐urban well‐being from space with nonlinear machine learning

Piotr Wójcik, Krystian Andruszek

Pages: 891-913 | First Published: 19 September 2021

INTRODUCTION

Modelling place attractiveness in the era of big and open data

John Östh, Umut Türk, Jie Huang

Pages: 914-915 | First Published: 13 September 2022

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Open Access

Where is the consumer centre? A case of St. Petersburg

Konstantin Kholodilin, Irina Koroleva, Darya Kryutchenko

Pages: 916-938 | First Published: 25 June 2020

Open Access

House price valuation of environmental amenities: An application of GIS‐derived data

Liv Osland, John Östh, Viggo Nordvik

Pages: 939-959 | First Published: 06 December 2020

Open Access

Commuting patterns of preschool children in metropolitan Stockholm

Andreas Alm Fjellborg, Håkan Forsberg

Pages: 960-980 | First Published: 01 March 2021

Open Access

Intergenerational income mobility in Sweden: A look at the spatial disparities across municipalities

Alessandra Michelangeli, John Östh, Umut Türk

Pages: 981-1004 | First Published: 09 July 2021

Open Access

Stated locational preferences of Italian entrepreneurs: The underlying location factors

Dario Musolino, Wim Meester, Piet Pellenbarg

Pages: 1005-1021 | First Published: 18 November 2021

BOOK REVIEWS

New Economies for Sustainability. Luise Li Langergaard, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham, Switzerland. 2022. 273 Hardback. xii, pp ISBN 978‐3‐030‐81742‐8 ISBN 978‐3‐030‐81743‐5 (e‐book)

Fadli Agus Triansyah

Pages: 1022-1024 | First Published: 06 June 2022

Goldin, Claudia. 2021. Career and family: Women's century‐long journey toward equity. Princeton University Press,. US$27.95, Hb, 325pp, ISBN 978‐0‐691‐20178‐8

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal

Pages: 1025-1027 | First Published: 06 June 2022

More information: http://www.rsai.org.in/

Dear Colleagues! 

We would like to inform you that the extended deadline for submitting abstracts for CERS 2022 Conference (VIRTUAL) is September 19^th 2022!

The European Regional Science Association – Polish, Slovak and Hungarian Sections, and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland) invite scholars, experts, and administration professionals to participate in the 8th Central European Conference in Regional Science, with the main theme "Resilience of cities and regions in an uncertain time" that will be held online on 21-23rd November 2022.   

The extended deadline for Abstract Submission is September 19, 2022. Please note that there is a limit of two presentations per participant. Abstracts should be submitted using the abstract submission portal.

You can also register to the Conference using the registration portal. Early bird registration is until September 30th.

For information on abstract submission, please visit the CERS 2022 Conference website cers.amu.edu.pl. The list of more than 20 themes, special sessions and young scientist session is available at the conference webpage.  

The conference is open to a diverse worldwide audience, including academics, experts, and policy makers. It aims to bring together research, ideas, concepts, and experiences and provide a welcoming forum for discussing research and presenting different points of view on the contemporary challenges of cities and regions.  

The themes which will be addressed focus on the challenges of meeting the development of urban and regional systems in an uncertain time. Topics such as the economic, social, and environmental challenges in urban, rural, and regional development and transition in uncertain times are essential issues that the CERS 2022 Conference will consider.  

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

On behalf of the Organizing Committee  

Dear WRSA Members and Friends,

This is a friendly reminder for the paper submission for our 62nd Annual Meeting in Big Island, Hawaii from Feb 15th to Feb 18th, 2023. For those wanting the information now, here are the key details (or you can find more about our meeting here!):

Paper Submission: Papers should be uploaded to the WRSA website by October 15, 2022, although as in past years the "deadline" will be extended until mid-November. Remember that program invitations are only issued on the basis of full papers, not abstracts or outlines. Draft papers are sufficient for the October deadline, so long as we have a complete version in hand by January 15th, 2023.

Hotel Reservations: Our meeting hotel is Hilton Waikoloa Village located in Big Island, HI, one of the most beloved meeting spots among our members. Located on the sunny, scenic Kohala Coast, the oceanfront resort offers a taste of the island life full of culture, poolside relaxation, and a chance to meet marine wildlife up close. At Hilton Waikoloa Village, you can enjoy the magic of Hawaii, an oasis dotted with lagoons, pools, water slides, and a wide variety of restaurants and bars. Our negotiated daily room rate is $239 plus applicable taxes and a $15 resort fee (reduced from $45 for our group). Compare our discounted rate to the regular daily room rate of $585 plus applicable taxes and a $45 resort fee. See the “Hotel Information” link on the WRSA website. The hotel has agreed to honor our special room rate three days prior to and three days following our meeting, based on availability. Please note: after January 13, 2023, the hotel will no longer honor our special room rate! Be sure to book early!

Tiebout Prize: Advisors and Ph.D. students alike are reminded that October 15 is the hard deadline for submissions for the 37th Annual Tiebout Prize in Regional Science. Visit the WRSA website for full details. Papers co-authored with faculty advisors are acceptable; however, the primary author must meet the Tiebout student requirements and the bulk of the substantive work and contribution of the paper must have come from the student. REQUIRED: Submitted pdfs of the paper must include a letter from the faculty advisor confirming that these requirements have been met.

Student Conference Assistants: WRSA is seeking several students to assist with meeting registration in Big Island, HI. In exchange for 10-15 hours of volunteering at the registration desk, students will receive a complete rebate of their preregistration fees (worth $150, to be processed as a refund following the meeting). Additionally, volunteering students will be able to benefit from a discounted daily staff room rate of $179 (with a roommate volunteer, it will be $89.50 plus tax and a daily resort fee of $7.50). All student volunteers should stay at our conference hotel, Hilton Waikoloa Village. Contact WRSA via email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), if you're interested.

Session Chairs and Paper Discussants: Planning to come to Big Island, Hawaii, and won’t be presenting a paper? We are always VERY happy to assign you a session chair role or paper discussant duties if you’re willing. Just drop us an email  (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) to let us know your preferences and availability constraints.

Feel free to contact me (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) with any questions.

All the best,

Jaewon
Program Chair, 2023 Annual Meeting
Executive Director, WRSA

The Regional Science Association International (RSAI) seeks candidates for the position of editor-in-chief of the official journal of the association, Regional Science Policy & Practice (RSPP), starting Jan. 1, 2023 for a three-year term.

RSPP is an international journal that publishes high quality papers in applied regional science that explore policy and practice issues in regional and local development. It welcomes papers from a range of academic disciplines and practitioners including planning, public policy, geography, economics and environmental science and related fields. Papers should address the interface between academic debates and policy development and application. RSPP provides an opportunity for academics and policy-makers to develop a dialogue to identify and explore many of the challenges facing local and regional economies.

Candidates should be RSAI members in good standing, with a wide knowledge of urban and regional phenomena as well as distinguished records of scholarly contributions internationally. Candidates should also possess strong intellectual vision, leadership and organizational abilities, and experience relevant to editing a journal in the field of regional science.

The editor’s primary responsibility is to continue to enhance the journal’s quality, reputation, and scholarship. The editor will be expected to strengthen the journal’s competitive position in support of RSAI’s worldwide mission.

The editor will recommend an international team of associate editors and a book review editor to help administer the peer review process, promote excellence in content and advance editorial initiatives.

The RSPP editor reports to the RSAI Council.

Detailed information on responsibilities and on the process for applying for the editor-in-chief position is available below.

Letters of interest must be received within October 16, 2022.

Specific duties of the Editor-in-Chief and journal editorial office include:

1. Maintaining and updating the aims and scope of the journal, editorial policies, and guidelines to authors.
2. Overseeing the manuscript peer review process through the publisher’s on-line submission portal in an unbiased, confidential, and timely manner.
3. Checking proofs and revisions to proofs.
4. Preparing and forwarding accepted manuscripts to the publisher’s production department.
5. Coordinating standards and practices across managing editors and managing the workload of each member of the editorial team.
6. Maintaining close and regular contact with the publisher on marketing and production matters.
7. Initiating and responding to correspondence with authors, managing editors, and reviewers.
8. Recruiting, selecting, and appointing RSPP board members that reflect the diversity of regional science and addressing any performance issues.
9. Soliciting special issues, selecting guest editors, and providing advice and assistance to guest editors.
10. Adhering to the page budget and financial structures set by RSAI. RSAI and the publisher are responsible for managing production, layout, printing, subscriptions, pricing and funding initiatives for society publications.
11. Appointing associate editors and a book review editor (to be approved by RSAI Council). The editorial team (editor and associate editors) will be comprised of RSAI members with high stature and respect in the community, and with the expertise to manage the breadth of regional science.
12. Serving as a non-voting ex officio member of RSAI Council and other regional science governing bodies.
13. Reporting to RSAI Council through regular reports at Council meetings.
14. Reporting to the journal editorial board through board meetings held at least once a year.

Application process:

Interested individuals should submit an application package that includes:

• A succinct letter of interest and qualifications, containing an indication of the editorial team;
• A vision statement for the next three to six years of publication of RSPP.
• A curriculum vitae;
• The names and contact information of three references.

All requested information should be submitted by e-mail as a single PDF file to the Executive Director, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., copying Elisabete Martins, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., in the e-mail.

Dear RSAI members,

By RSAI Constitution, nominations for Councilors-at-large “shall be made by the Council after solicitation of suggestions from the members of the Association”. At the end of 2022, the position on the RSAI Council held by Prof. Daniela-Luminita Constantin (Bucharest University of Economic Studies) will expire; we therefore inform that the proposals for a councilor-at-large can be sent to the address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. within September 30, 2022. Candidatures will have to include a professional CV and a photo.

The election of a councilor-at-large for the period 2023-2025 will take place electronically by RSAI members during the month of October 2022.

Best regards,