Global Challenges for Regions and Cities: Adaptation, Development, Governance

The RSA Russia Division and the Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management are partnering in 2017 as part of the XII annual conference Russian Regions in the Focus of Changes on 16-18 November 2017.

As part of this conference, the RSA Russia Division will organise a one-day workshop (17th November) with a focus on Global Challenges for Regions and Cities: Adaptation, Development, Governance.

The XII annual conference is one of the biggest international discussion forums in Russia covering issues of regional development, gathering representatives of governing authorities, academia, medium-sized businesses and large industrial enterprises. The key topic this year is how to ensure prominent economic growth in new economic realities.

Main conference topics:

• The Russian Federation mid-term development programme: alternatives
• Spatial development strategy of the country and regional development strategies
• Investment projects and growth points, regional investment strategies
• New production technologies. Development of non-energy export
• Development institutes: the role under new economic conditions
• Public administration efficiency improvement as a factor of economic growth

Last year more than 700 participants from 22 Russian regions and more than 10 countries (France, Germany, China, Spain, Wales, Italy, Estonia, Mexico, Poland, Armenia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan) attended the conference representing businesses, government authorities, expert community and academia.

Participants of the RSA Russia Division workshop and the XII annual conference Russian Regions in the Focus of Changes can take part in both events free of charge.

Call for Papers:

In the modern context, cities and regions are faced with increasing interdependence and necessity to coordinate decision-making on the one hand, and explosive growth of uncertainty and turbulence of the external environment on the other. The main factors contributing to the growing uncertainty and turbulence are global changes of demographic and migration trends, macroeconomic instability, new technological challenges, political upheavals, intensification of regional military conflicts. The scale of the uncertainty is so large, and the changes run so deep that it is critical to rethink our perception of the role of cities and regions in the modern world. At the same time the choice of regional adaptation models will vary for different countries (developed, developing, emerging), for different types of regions and cities (industrial, rural and post-industrial regions, small towns, big cities, urban agglomerations, etc.). These circumstances define the key topic of the workshop: searching for appropriate models of adaptation to new external environment for regions and cities; searching for new drivers and sources of sustainable territorial development.

The workshop’s discussion will be divided into three thematic clusters: The first one will focus on the new economic reality for cities and regions and aims to discuss issues regarding specific features of manifestation of global economic processes at the regional level, systematization of new challenges and threats for regional development. Particular attention will be given to characteristics of adapting different types of regions and cities to the new economic conditions, as well as identifying best practices.

The second thematic cluster is going to be devoted to the analysis of development trends in different types of regions and cities under the new economic conditions with a focus on issues of spatial differentiation of socio-economic development, including those in the areas of financial security, employment, migration, and demographic dynamics.

In the framework of the third cluster discussion, we will focus on best practice models of regional and city development management, identifying financial resources for implementation of strategic priorities of regions and cities under the new conditions.

We welcome papers addressing the following themes:

• New challenges and pressures for regions and cities
• Macroeconomic processes and global trends: regional projection
• Regions and cities: models of adaptation for new economic reality. Urban and regional leadership
• New forms of industrial development and policies. Competitiveness of industrial regions and cities in modern conditions.
• Unemployment, migration, demographic shifts: hardship and social tensions
• Policies for shrinking cities
• Rural areas under new pressures. Marginalization of rural peripheries. Suburbanization processes
• Financial crisis, resilience and recession: impacts for regions and cities, factors of disparities
• Austerity and the financing of urban and regional investment
• Public-private financial investments and ventures for regional and urban development
• City and region building: governance and institutions
• Regional policy in post-soviet countries: old legacies and new challenges
• Trust and accountability as factor of territorial development, participatory democracy, participatory budgeting

We kindly invite researchers, experts, young scientists, policy makers, representatives of the government, local authorities and business community who are interested in the thorough understanding of issues concerned with regional and city development, as well as the search for appropriate models of adaptation to the new economic reality.