RSA Membership Research Grant Scheme (MeRSA)

Previous and Current Grant Holders

Eduardo Medeiros

Effective Project Appraisal and Regional Development

In some countries EU Cohesion Policy (ECP) serves as the main source of policy investment for regional development. Consequently, the Project Appraisal effectiveness of ECP is crucial to fostering their regional development trends. However, our experience in analysing wide sets of ECP approved projects’ databases, in countries such as Portugal and Spain, reveal a somewhat lack of criteria in the selection of ECP financed projects. This might explain why several regions in both Iberian countries remain in the group of less development European Union (EU) regions, since both countries joined the currently known EU. In this context, the main goal of this project is to investigate the Project Appraisal process of ECP is in several EU member-states’ regions, covering all parts of Europe (South: Portugal and Spain; North: Finland and Denmark; West: Germany and Ireland; and East: Czechia and Hungary). The main objective of the proposed analysis is not only to unveil and compare the ‘administrative/institutional criteria’ used for the selection of EU Cohesion Policy implemented projects, but also ‘who’ (entity, political party, etc.) interferes in that selection. Ultimately, the project proposes to find potential co-relation causes for ‘regional development trends’ and the ‘project appraisal of ECP process’.

“I was quite pleased with the news that I was selected to receive the MSRSA Grant since it is quite prestigious and competitive, and will allow me to expand my research in regional studies over the next 18 months”.

Principal Investigator: Eduardo Medeiros, Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal

Eduardo is a Geography Professor and an Integrated Research Fellow in DINÂMIA’CET-IUL, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. He has a Ph.D.and post-Ph.D in Geography – Regional and Urban Planning, and around 200 publications, including more than 60 published papers in international journals, 12 books and 22 book chapters. His research interests are focused on EU Cohesion Policy, Territorial Impact Assessment, Territorial Cohesion, Territorial Development, Territorial Cooperation, Environmental Sustainability and Spatial Planning. He is a DG REGIO (European Commission) URBACT III and b-solutions expert, and a member of the scientific advisory panel of ESPON, and the European Commission Sounding Board of the Cohesion for Transitions Community of Practice and the Reflection Group on the future of Cohesion Policy (territorial cooperation). He is also a Regional Studies Association Fellow. He has coordinated several international policy evaluation projects and was a member of DG REGIO, ESPON and FCT projects. He was invited as a project adviser and to write reports and position papers for DG REGIO and the World Bank. He was already invited to be a keynote speaker by several International Universities and EU institutions (European Commission and Committee of the Regions). He is a member of the scientific and editorial committee of several journals and a peer reviewer of more than 35 international journals. He was a final Jury of the New European Bauhaus Prizes 2022. He is the lead expert in the Main Area of Governance in the Preparatory Action “New European Bauhaus Knowledge Management Platform” and organiser of three workshops of EURegionsWeekUniversity and chair in another.

Arnisson Andre Ortega

Geographies of Refugee Resettlement and Post-industrial Urban Renewal in Rust Belt Cities

Refugees are active agents of urban change. According to the United Nations, 60 percent of the world’s refugees are in cities and as such, cities of today are uniquely positioned to seek solutions that address refugee concerns alongside interrelated urban social justice and sustainability issues. Much of the scholarly and policy analyses on refugees in cities have rightfully focused on issues of exclusion, violence, and encampments in host cities. While such is important, there is much to be learned about the multiple resettlement trajectories involving refugee communities across the globe. In the United States, thousands of refugees are resettled into cities. Among the major recipients of refugees in the United States are cities in the Rust Belt, a region that struggled with economic stagnation and population loss due to deindustrialization.

Focusing on the cities of Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio in the United States, this study will examine how refugee resettlement has reconfigured post-industrial urban renewal and revitalization. Through a mixed method approach that combines secondary analysis of quantitative data, policy documents and community resources, semi-structured interviews with community leaders, organization heads, and city officials, and focus group discussions of refugee residents, this project has three objectives. First, it will assess the multi-scalar policy shifts concerning refugee resettlement, refugee integration, and urban renewal. Second, the study will analyze the changes in the local housing market due to refugee resettlement, tracing both formal and informal networks that interlink refugee resettlement with the real estate market. Third, the study will examine the emergence of refugee communities in selected city neighborhoods, detailing the local dynamics that sustain the lives and livelihood of communities, including community initiatives that promote the economic, cultural, and social interests of the community. Findings from this project will help develop a framework that integrates refugee resettlement and urban revitalization, one which can guide urban policies and planning practices and that advocates for socially just and sustainable futures.

Thank you to the Regional Science Association for supporting this project. It is an honor to receive this grant. As an immigrant faculty here in the United States, working on refugee and immigration issues as they pertain to urban transformation is at the core of my scholarship. I expect this study to blossom into future community-engaged projects that will advocate for refugee concerns.

Principal Investigator: Arnisson Andre Ortega

Arnisson Andre C. Ortega is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment in Syracuse University. He is a critical geographer focusing on (1) community-engaged work; (2) spatial politics of urban transformations; (3) transnational urbanism; and (4) critical demography. He is an affiliate faculty of the Community Geography program at Syracuse University.

Paula Margaretic Huertas

International Migration, Climate Change and Network Effects: A Worldwide Study

The goal of this project is twofold. First, develop a comprehensive database of international mobility among countries. Second, at a macro level, investigate the determinants of this mobility, focusing on the interlinkages among the environmental, socio-economic, and political factors characterizing countries. To do this, I propose a global analysis of more than 100 countries worldwide.

I am honored to be awarded one of the MeRSA grants. I am excited about the opportunity of developing my research on international mobility and contributing to our understanding and ongoing policy discussions on migration and the socioeconomic and environmental contexts driving this phenomenon. The award will allow me to connect with the active RSA community.

Principal Investigator: Paula Margaretic Huertas

I am honored to be awarded one of the MeRSA grants. I am excited about the opportunity of developing my research on international migration and contributing to our understanding and ongoing policy discussions on migration and the socio-economic and environmental contexts driving this phenomenon. The award will allow me to connect with the active RSA community.

Simonetta Armondi

Logistics City-Regions in Transition. New Spatial Imaginary?

Over the last few years, the goods distribution system in European cities has suffered a strong fragmentation. City-regions are substituting cities in the global economic and political setting and their roles in the world economy related to logistics. Understanding the policy and governance dimension of logistics and freight distribution about land uses and circulation modes is crucial in exploring how logistics are discursively framed. The project – in the framework of a research on Operational Geographies (https://www.operationalgeographies.polimi.it/en/operational-geographies-spatial-strategies-dynamic-maps-of-regional-urbanization-a-basic-research-project/) analyses how contested and contradictory, such issues are.

Moved by these concerns, the project explores the regionalisation processes ongoing in two Southern European city-regions: Verona (Italy) and Zaragoza (Spain). It focuses mainly on the influence of the dynamics of logistics, addressing three main questions: 1) How does logistics produce new city-region geographies beyond node-network-style transportation studies? 2) How are logistics impacting city-regions development dynamics and their sustainability and green transition? 3) After the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how are the logistics regions planning their future and preparing to face unexpected crises? The research develops qualitative analyses concerning the spatial trajectories of those areas that have been interested in new trends in global supply chain and city-region freight distribution, trying to understand the new spatial imaginary mobilised by private logistics operators and public actors upon freight villages, logistics issues and ecological transition.

I am deeply honoured that the Regional Studies Association will support this project. Receiving the Membership Research Grant Scheme is an excellent opportunity to strengthen my research and focus on a selected topic. Thanks to the grant, I hope to address a specific gap in understanding and conceptualising city-regional logistics.

Principal Investigator: Simonetta Armondi

Simonetta Armondi is an Associate Professor in Economic and Political Geography at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU). Her research interests focus on 1) productive territories and spatial justice, 2) Technical lands and city-region policies, 3) Political ecology . She is currently the scientific coordinator of the RIBA Research Project (funded by the DAStU): Operational Geographies in Northern Italy (2021-2023

www.operationalgeographies.polimi.it) and co-director of the research: 2024 Annual Report “The Cities and Territories of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). Actors, processes, policies”, Urban@it, National Centre for Urban Policies Studies. Since 2017 she has been on the Journal of Urban Technology editorial board.

Kean Fan Lim

Negotiating Economic Growth and Geopolitical Risks: Regional Impacts and Implications of Chinese investments in the UK, 2000-2020

This project addresses a major and surprisingly under-addressed gap in regional studies, namely the role of geopolitics in regional economic resilience. Through examining whether subnational regions (firms, local authorities and workers) in the UK are willing to trade off national security risks (both real and perceived) for new investments by Chinese firms, the study aims to ascertain and explain the tensions that exist between international geopolitics and subnational growth strategies. In doing so, it integrates geopolitics firmly in the conceptual framing of regional economic resilience.

“I’m delighted to be awarded the MeRSA grant because it offers an excellent opportunity to address a timely issue – the implications and value of investments from Chinese firms – pertaining to regional development in advanced economies. The grant will provide support for obtaining data that highlights how important geopolitics impact subnational regional resilience. I’m very excited to launch this study as I believe it addresses a distinct gap in how we currently understand and conceptualise regional resilience.”

Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia

Designing Regional Innovation Policies from Innovation Scoreboards

This MeRSA project aims to transform the European Innovation Scoreboard into a useful instrument for the definition, measurement and directionality of innovation policies. The project goes beyond the state-of-the-art by developing a technology (i.e. computational software) that measures innovation from multiple perspectives (i.e. glasses): size, efficiency, cross efficiency, technological change, catching-up, network efficiency, scale and scope, saturation and effectiveness. All these perspectives will be developed using mathematical programming techniques to be applied to the set of data provided by the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) for all European countries and by the Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) for all European regions.

The novelty of this MeRSA research grant lies in that departing from publicly available data, it will develop multiple perspectives that allow capturing the inherent multidimensionality of innovation systems. The project does not intend to discuss the quality and accuracy of the EIS or the RIS data. It will merely use the same set of existing (public) data in the form provided by the EIS and the RIS, but from many different perspectives, to produce an array of robust results, to define more effective policies. To use a metaphor, we will develop a technology equivalent to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), but for assessing innovation systems rather than football, and providing directionality to policy makers rather than to referees.

“In the year 2007 I published the first-ever contribution on the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess the innovation efficiency of European regions in Regional Studies. Ever since, DEA as a scientific method has gone through a major development, leading to a higher robustness. In fact, some of the publications I have been involved in, dealing with the application of these robust DEA methods. As a result, we have already developed the methodologies to assess some of the dimensions we aim to use in the project: innovation size, efficiency, cross efficiency, technical change and catching up, but these methodologies have been developed at the national level. I usually say that, so far, we have been developing a prototype, and finetuning it to achieve robust results at the national level. Now that we know that the prototype works, our ambition is to scale it up, applying the methodologies that we already have at the regional level, so our conclusions can feed the decisions of regional policy makers.

With the MeRSA grant I expect to achieve the following outcomes: (i) to develop the methodologies that are still missing (i.e. network efficiency, scale, scope, saturation, effectiveness) to assess territorial innovation at national levels; (ii) to extend the application of all of the above dimensions from the national to the regional levels in Europe; (iii) to have a sound evidence-based policy impact that helps to break with the dominant logics of the-more-the-better, so policymaking is not limited to putting more and more resources into innovation systems, but rather seeking for an optimization of the already existing resources to increase the additionality of innovation policies. Having received the MeRSA grant will undoubtedly help me accomplish my vision of developing a technology that makes innovation scoreboards useful for the definition and directionality of innovation policies.”

Watch a video of Jon Mikel describing his research

Isaac Kwamena Arthur

Urban Regeneration in Coastal Cities: Proposing a Strategy for Revitalising Old and Historic Buildings in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Area, Ghana

While the concept of adaptive reuse is widely prescribed in the existing literature as a panacea for revitalising derelict buildings, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how it could be useful in Ghana’s coastal cities. These cities are characterised by many old and historic buildings constructed during Ghana’s colonial era that are decaying due to continuous neglect. Cities’ transformation through regeneration and adaptive reuse of derelict buildings is yet to become a policy priority in Ghana. The increasing demand for buildings for different uses in Ghana’s twin city, Sekondi-Takoradi makes this research important and timely. This research aims to explore the drivers of derelict old and historic buildings in Sekondi, the older part of the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis and to propose a strategy for utilising those buildings. This is deemed necessary for a city which is striving to ensure that its infrastructure, including buildings, keeps pace with the increasing population, a phenomenon largely induced by the in-migration of people in search of oil-related opportunities. The study is grounded in action research design and will rely on a qualitative approach for empirical analysis. I will use interviews, oral histories, building tours and archival materials to construct histories of the case study vicinities in Sekondi and to understand why buildings are being neglected. Additional interviews with owners/families, planners, city authorities, architects and other relevant stakeholders will be used to determine how neglected buildings could be revitalised and given new functional uses. The research is expected to inform local policy on integrating the regeneration of old and historic derelict buildings in the planning schemes of Sekondi-Takoradi as well as provide data on the attributes and history of buildings since such information is rarely documented. Promoting adaptive reuse of historic buildings will create a myriad of economic opportunities for people, contribute to heritage conservation, inspire a sense of community and a basis for the city to reinvent itself.

“I have been an admirer and a member of the Regional Studies Association since I was a PhD student at Aalborg University, Denmark. I feel extremely honoured to be awarded the Regional Studies Association Membership Research Grant. Indeed, it is a dream come true. Besides its usefulness to lessen the financial burden of doing research, the grant has opened a huge door for me to navigate into the research field of urban regeneration and adaptive reuse. I look forward to having an exciting research process with this grant”.

Simón Sánchez-Moral

Disentangling COVID-19 as a driving force of path development processes in Spain

This research seeks to further explore path development processes in Spanish regions by analysing the industrial sector’s response to the shortage of medical supplies during the COVID -19 pandemic. This was caused by difficulties in purchasing abroad and interrupted supply chains, especially during the first part of the year 2020. Given this context, the project seeks to study the diversification strategies in existing firms throughout the country, or the creation of new ones, aimed at manufacturing medical instruments and materials. Keeping in mind the factors of a limited time frame and a possible limited spatial impact of this phenomenon, we seek to to contribute to the understanding of how the path development mechanism operates in different regional contexts, while addressing key challenges in the Evolutionary Economic Geography’s research agenda. In particular, the study will examine regional pre-existing conditions for regional diversification. It will emphasize regional knowledge bases, the role of related and unrelated variety, firms’ external connections, as well as routines, conventions and policies within the regional innovation system. The study is based on a mixed-methods approach.

I am very honored to develop the Regional Studies Association Membership Research Grant Scheme (MeRSA). The support by the RSA will help us to contribute to this research agenda and reinforce international collaborations.

For more information about this project, please see the project website.

Christophe Sohn

Borders reloaded! The impact of rebordering dynamics on European cross-border regionalism

The overall aim of the project is to investigate the ways in which the hardening of EU’s internal borders in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and more broadly the resurgence of borders in the political agenda of states, affect the ideas underpinning cross-border cooperation (CBC) and the discourses of local and regional actors engaged in cross-border region-building. The starting point of the project is the acknowledgement that the on-going dynamics of rebordering are challenging the significance of supposedly open borders for CBC. While the immediate reactions of regional actors and the socio-economic consequences of border closures for European border regions have hold scholars’ attention, the ways in which rebordering may deeply impact actors’ beliefs, claims and imaginaries that underlie their CBC initiatives remains a subject little explored to date.

Based on a discursive-material approach, the project aims at (1) uncovering the conditions and mechanisms through which ideational changes occur in local and regional CBC discourses and (2) examining the implications of these changes for the governance of cross-border regions and their development paths. Empirically, the research relies on the analysis of actors’ discourses in two emblematic cross-border metropolitan regions: Greater Geneva, at the French–Swiss border, and Greater Copenhagen, at the Danish–Swedish border. The analysis of CBC stakeholders’ interview accounts mobilizes a multimodal social semiotics perspective attentive to how different communication artefacts (spoken and written texts, images) combine and are used to create meaning in specific social contexts. Finally, the project aims at translating the research outcomes into insights for policymakers at regional, national and EU levels who seek to address the challenges posed by rebordering to cross-border integration, regional development and cohesion policies.

I am very honoured to be awarded a MeRSA grant. This award will allow me to explore the spatial and political implications of the ‘reloading’ of borders into the cross-border cooperation ‘mindware’, with a potential to have both an academic and policy impact. I am particularly excited by the opportunity to showcase my research and contribute to develop a fruitful dialogue between border studies and the lively RSA community.

Maria Siranova

Bank Branch Closings and Local SME Economic Activity in Slovakia – Good Servant but a Bad Master?

Better access to finance has been shown to improve economic growth, both globally and locally. Yet, the ongoing financialization relying on alternative distributional channels (FINTEC industry) challenges the need for physical presence of credit intermediators, local bank branches in particular. Hypothetically, reduction in local bank network, if compensated by new online distributional channels, should therefore have a neutral impact on local businesses activities as well as overall regional economic performance. This project aims to investigate how bank branch closings affect economic performance of individual firms in Slovakia. I will specifically focus on change in economic performance of SME segment (productivity) that represents the cornerstone of regional development in Europe and is hypothesised to be mostly affected by the bank branch closures.

This research aims to deliver relevant knowledge to different groups of stakeholders: policy makers, banking industry, or bank customers. First and foremost, policy makers in charge of competitiveness and industrial policy need to comprehend implications of ongoing structural changes in banking industry. This is true especially when it comes to funding of SME sector, which in Europe constitutes more than 99.8% of all businesses, contributes to 54.6% of total value added and provides employment for 67% of the total active labour force (EC, 2019). However, this sector is also the one most exposed towards the potential credit rationing by banking sector. On the one hand, restricted access to credit due to natural creative destruction in banking industry might be compensated by targeted support of new innovative technological solutions. Potentially, the creative destruction itself might result in market-based innovative solutions without any further involvement of economic policy.

“I am deeply honoured and very grateful to the Regional Studies Association to become a recipient of the MeRSA grant. This award will help me to analyse effects of recently observed re-design of bank branch network that may affect business activity of small and medium enterprises which form a backbone of Slovak economy. Thanks to the grant I hope I will be able to ignite the passion for research also among young generation of students.”

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Grants

This grant aims to reward excellence and support outstanding individual researchers on a topic related to regional studies and regional science. It is intended primarily to provide opportunities for scholars who have already published in the field of regional studies and/or regional science and who are currently Individual members of the RSA. The value of the award is up to £5,000 (c. $6,600; c. €5,900). The award has a maximum time span of 18 months and reporting conditions apply. The full Terms and Conditions governing the grant are available in the MeRSA Handbook.

Please click here for the updated prioritised research themes.

Application Deadline (Expression of Interest): 12th May 2025, 23:59 BST

The MeRSA Grant operates a two stage application and assessment process. In the first round, applicants are asked to submit an expression of interest. The Expression of Interest should submitted via the form – please click on the button below to apply. Shortlisted applicants from this first round will then be asked to submit a full proposal as part of the final selection round. The Expression of Interest should include the following (see details in the handbook):

Applicant information details
Title of the research project
Timings of the research
Summary including details of research and the advances it is hoped that it will make (Max 500 words)
Brief overview of costs and budget
1-3 page CV

Apply for MeRSA grant scheme

If you have any questions or need any help with the submission form, please send us an email to mersa@regionalstudies.org

To see about our grant holder research projects and to watch their videos explaining their research, please click on the Previous and Current Grant Holders grant holder names on the lower left of this page.

For information about a current MeRSA research project by Simón Sánchez-Moral, please visit his project page Disentangling COVID-19 as a driving force of path development processes in Spain

In the video below, Sabine Dörry, RSA Ambassador to Luxembourg and previous MeRSA grant holder shares her top tips for writing grant applications.

In the video below, Xabier Gainza, one of our 2017 MeRSA Grant Holders gives his tips for grant applications:

Andrea Morrison, a MeRSA Grant holder, shares his tips for a successful grant application in the recording below:

Membership Research Grant Scheme (MeRSA)

Award Month

Location

Eduardo Medeiros

Award Month

Location

Arnisson Andre Ortega

Award Month

Location

Paula Margaretic Huertas

Award Month

Location

Simonetta Armondi

Award Month

Location

Kean Fan Lim

Award Month

Location

Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia

Award Month

Location

Isaac Kwamena Arthur

Award Month

Location

Simón Sánchez-Moral

Disentangling COVID-19 as a driving force of path development processes in Spain

Award Month

Location

Christophe Sohn

Borders reloaded! The impact of rebordering dynamics on European cross-border regionalism

Award Month

Location

Maria Siranova

Bank Branch Closings and Local SME Economic Activity in Slovakia – Good Servant but a Bad Master?

Please click here for the updated prioritised research themes.

Application Deadline (Expression of Interest): 12th May 2025, 23:59 BST