Conscious that next year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Regional Studies Association (RSA), at the most recent meeting of the RSA Board, Board members and I began thinking about an updated strategy for the Association. We agreed that a strategic plan should be finalised no later than December 2025.
Why take so long to write a strategy, you might ask?
In part, the answer lies in the nature of the exercise itself. Strategic reviews are opportunities to revisit and re-affirm our core principles, reflect on what we do best and state what we wish to achieve over the next few years. Deliberations of this kind tend to get richer and deeper when given time to unfold. Giving ourselves eighteen months to finalise our plan also acknowledges the nature of the Association today. From its origins as a UK-focused learned society, the RSA has evolved into a global network of researchers, policymakers and practitioners. Consequently, it will take time to talk to members of our diverse community about what matters to them and to acknowledge their views in our planning. In fact, this Blog forms part of what Board members and I hope will become an open conversation about RSA strategy.
So, where to start?
One of the few things strategy researchers agree on is that there is no consensus on the meaning of the term itself. Some people think about strategy as long-term, top-down planning to achieve stated objectives, while others conceptualise a social process in which people at all levels of an organisation respond to ever-changing internal and external circumstances (Grant, 2019). That said, many working in this field accept that organisations use strategy to adjust their capabilities to their external environment and that strategy formulation should consider the future environment in which an organisation anticipates operating.
This is precisely where Board members and I began last June. Readers may be aware of the PESTLE taxonomy, which invites analysis of the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental trends or factors likely to impact an organisation and its work in the medium to long term. Conscious of the porous boundaries between PESTLE categories, we adapted the framework by combining some categories and by analysing trends at a range of scales, including the regional. Following a discussion immediately prior to the RSA Annual Conference in Florence, further ideas were invited from Board members and staff between June and August. What follows is intended to give a clear, rather than comprehensive, picture of the themes identified and their planning implications.
Political/Legal factors and implications
Our collective sense is that we are entering a more fractious geopolitical era, which carries an increased risk of conflict between major global powers, supra-national groupings of nations and non-state actors at a range of scales. An unsettled geopolitical backdrop will challenge international, non-governmental organisations like the RSA to think carefully about their role supporting cross-border collaboration in circumstances where borders are contested, and/or in providing a research evidence base for post-conflict regional development. Although these are sensitive matters, they are also aspects of our knowledge and research that may be highly valued in the future.
A second theme concerns the increase in nationalism, populism and nativism in jurisdictions across the world, especially in ‘left behind’ places. Of course, the RSA has published extensive research into the causes and the outcomes of inequality, including its political ramifications. For the RSA itself, the prospect of populist governments marginalising evidence produced by research communities such as ours, or rejecting evidence-informed policy in favour of entrenched ideological positions, seems very real and rather dispiriting. A strategic response might involve building stronger partnerships with like-minded organisations across the world – working together to advocate for the value of the knowledge we produce and to support researchers and others who find themselves constrained by their local political environment.
At the same time, in some countries and global regions, such as the USA and EU, the strengthening of interventionist policies to address inequalities may provide opportunities for the RSA to influence policymaking to a greater extent than currently. We might aim over the next few years to re-energise our policy engagement in these regions, to demonstrably influence policy and practice. Working towards such a goal might involve enabling and supporting the impressive work already going on in RSA territorial networks worldwide and on behalf of its European Foundation, RSA Europe.
Economic and socio-cultural factors and implications
Our discussions acknowledge that the support available to regional and urban researchers and practitioners working in the Global South can be limited, and resources for knowledge exchange and networking scarce. For many years, the Association has attempted to compensate for this inequity, by offering significantly lower subscription rates for members in lower income countries around the world. Looking ahead, there is a strong moral argument (and firm support from within the RSA) to take further steps to achieve more equitable uptake of RSA services, including membership and grants, and to widen participation in terms of conference attendance and article authorship.
A clear trend surfaced in our analysis concerns the need for organisations to better represent the constituencies they serve or speak for. This is especially the case where, as with the RSA, the organisation is concerned with building international networks and intercultural understanding. As the Association approaches its 60th year, it is important to acknowledge our origins in the UK but to move beyond the promotion of Anglo or Eurocentric views, as may have been the case in the past. Building on the successes of recent years, during which time the RSA has globalised its activity, diversified its membership and done much to attract Early Career Researchers, a strategic objective around Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) might enable us to further diversify our membership and leadership, promote more inclusive practices within the RSA and advance inclusive research practices across the regional and urban research community. The benefits to the RSA and the research community of widening participation and increasing the range of voices we hear at all levels of the Association are likely to be self-evident to readers of this Blog.
For those members of our community employed in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), we recognise that accountability and workload pressures are generally on the rise and that these can squeeze the time available to voluntarily support organisations like the RSA. Looking ahead, we may need to find new ways of supporting, compensating or investing in those who support of our community. At the same time, we recognise that accountability frameworks and cultures in many HEIs demand greater emphasis on research impact, including social impact. Here, there may be a ‘win-win’ for researchers, society and the RSA, if we can demonstrate to HEIs that we offer an effective and distinctive pathway for research impact and convince senior policymakers that the RSA provides an authoritative source of actionable research recommendations. In practical terms, this may involve scaling up the opportunities we provide for researchers to dialogue with policymakers and devising more effective ways of communicating with non-academic audiences.
Technological factors and implications
Like so many small and medium sized not-for-profit organisations, the RSA is constantly working to make sense of the dizzying rate of change in the field of information technology. Our analysis focuses on the likely impacts of current technological trends, rather than on crystal-ball gazing around possible future technologies. For example, we note that in today’s highly complex and fluid digital environment, it is more challenging for organisations like the RSA to command and hold the attention of prospective members or stakeholders, no matter how much time and effort we put into our digital communications. Ironically, in an era where it has become ever easier to search for information online and to make (and break) online connections with others, there is an increased value given to trustworthy and authoritative sources of networking and knowledge, such as the RSA. Our evidence suggests that new members tend to ‘find’ the Association through personal recommendations and positive encounters, such as writing for a journal or attending a conference. Part of our forthcoming strategy might address the need for the RSA to communicate who we are and what we offer in a more streamlined and navigable way. We may also need to invest in technology to facilitate member networking and collaborative working.
Environmental factors and implications
In response to the climate and biodiversity crises globally, the RSA recognises that there is an urgent need for organisations to reduce their environmental impacts and carbon emissions and to support a just as well as a ‘green’ transition. These imperatives are close to the heart of RSA members, many of whom are actively involved in researching sustainable solutions for the future. In recent years, the RSA has committed itself to reducing its environmental impact, with its most recent initiative being a move to publishing its journals online only. However, in the next strategic planning period the onus is on the Association to produce a clear pathway towards carbon neutrality, as a growing number of organisations and governments around the world have done.
Next steps towards an RSA strategy
An external lens is a useful building block for strategy, but it does not produce a set of strategic priorities to feed into a plan. The ideas set out above are big-picture possibilities and hypotheticals. Each requires testing, and that is what we are now doing.
Following an informative trial exercise in Florence, the RSA is running a series of focus groups involving RSA members and non-members from the research, practice and policymaking communities. We have identified groups of individuals at different career stages, working in different parts of the world or belonging to existing networks, such as the RSA Women’s Network. By gathering perspectives on the challenges people face (now and in the future), what they value most about RSA support, and where else they go for support and career development, our aim is to challenge our own ideas about the priorities ahead and to ensure RSA strategy is responsive to the needs of those it exists to serve.
We have already begun to explore the strategic and practical implications of our PESTLE analysis. In particular, we are mindful of the transition towards open access (OA) publishing of research and – connected to this development – the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as features of the research and publishing landscape. Given that the RSA publishes six academic journals, an eZine, two academic book series and this Blog, trends in publishing will be prominent in our forthcoming discussions. At the next Board meeting, for example, we will focus on the academic journal publishing sector and where the RSA journal portfolio ‘sits’ within this.
Not only are responses to this Blog welcomed (please send your comments to alan.kinder@regionalstudies.org) but further opportunities for dialogue lie ahead. In November, the opening plenary of the RSA’s Winter Conference will focus on ‘The future of the RSA’. The session will enable delegates to hear from RSA leaders about their emerging ideas but will equally be an invitation for the audience to share their views and ask questions. We look forward to seeing you there!
Reference
Grant, R. (2019) Contemporary strategy analysis. 10th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Thanks to RSA Board members for their analytical input and to Neil Lee, Sarah Ayres and Simona Iammarino for their feedback on a draft of this blog.