2024 RSA Annual Conference Special Sessions

Session Organisers:
Julie Ratcliffe, Flinders University, Australia
Tom Barnes, Australian Catholic University, Australia
Sally Weller, University of South Australia, Australia
David Bailey, University of Birmingham, UK
Markku Sotarauta, Tampere University, Finland
Andrew Beer, University of South Australia, Australia

Session Details
Across developed and developing economies, industries continue to be confronted by major change, including the rise of artificial intelligence, digital disruption and new technologies, the impacts of climate change, pandemics and public health emergencies, the resetting of cross-national relationships, and shifting consumer preferences in the face of demographic change and other social shifts. Industrial transformation can exert profoundly negative impacts on individual workers, communities, and entire regions. Increasingly, attention has focussed on the essential characteristics of a ‘just transition’ and how best to deliver this in policy and practice.
Globally entire industries appear to be at risk in the face of efforts to deal with climate change, including fossil fuel industries –coal, gas and oil – as well as some forms of manufacturing and primary industries. At the same time, other economic opportunities will emerge as key employers take up those made redundant but the transition of workforce from ‘old’ to ‘new’ may be complex and burdened by significant frictions if appropriate actions are not implemented. The need for new knowledge in this domain is profound.

This set of open special sessions seeks to explore economic change and its consequences in all its dimensions, including;

• Impacts on the workforce;
• Policy making, policy setting and the delivery of support to those affected by change;
• Global trends, including movements towards a well-being economy and away from the maximisation of gross domestic product at any cost, including implications for national and regional labour markets;
• Community well-being and resilience;
• The role of knowledge sharing across regional and national boundaries;
• Impacts on health and well-being;
• Place and organisational leadership in the face of disruptive change;
• Impacts on housing markets;
• The rise of new industries and employment opportunities;
• Training, education and generational chan
  

Session Organisers:
Ricardo Reboredo, Metropolitan University Prague, Czechia
Elisa Gambino, University of Manchester, UK

The study of China’s engagements with countries across the Global South has grown exponentially as a field of inquiry in recent years. Beginning largely as a response to China’s politico-economic internationalization in the context of the Go Out and Belt and Road Initiatives, the field has expanded to include research on large-scale infrastructures and their political/economic/social effects; increasing trade volumes and their significance for global production; the discourses/knowledges that accompany said engagement, and more recently, ongoing transformations in the wake of theCOVID-19 pandemic.

This special session draws inspiration from Doreen Massey’s groundbreaking spatial theories and aims to contribute to the field by re-centering place across these diverse contexts and engagements. We view Massey’s conceptualization of place – as unbounded, dynamic, and shaped by complex relations – as providing both a fresh lens through which to examine the multifaceted nature of China-Global South relations and a platform for transdisciplinary collaboration.

In embracing Massey’s perspectives, we aim to create new understandings that foreground the way multi-scalar connections(economic, social, political, cultural) between China and the countries of the Global South, are both shaping and being shaped by particularly and place. This session therefore invites contributions exploring possibilities and continuities, lineagesand intentionalities, as well as conjunctions and ruptures characterizing China-Global South engagements. We likewise welcome contributions that employ innovative methodologies, or engage with the field in relational manner, conceptualizing places as constituted by distinct lines of connection both to each other and the broader world.

Session Organisers:
Marcello Graziano, Ruralis, Norway
Davide Calandra, University of Turin, Italy

Predicting and understanding the impact of policies and initiatives on regions has become central for allocating resources and evaluating the ramification of often complex decision-making processes. The renovated interest in undertaking an active industrial policy shared by many national and regional governments, coupled with several transformative transition processes have made regional modeling relevant. Over the past three decades, regional modeling has taken multiple forms and used several tools: I/O models, (D) (S) CGE models, macroeconometric regional growth models, Agent-Based Models, and models accounting for wellbeing, and socioecological models have been developed at various scales and applied to answer multiple questions.
Building upon this rich literature, in this session we will combine case studies with a discussion on the challenges that all these methods are facing, and the opportunities they can build on, including cross-integrations, cross-contaminations, and issues related to uncertainty due to crossing tipping points. Furthermore, this session will explore the role of accounting in evaluating the impact of policies and initiatives on regions. Accounting aspects and reporting will be included in the discussion, with a focus on popular accounting as a dialogic means to engage the public in the analysis of the impact of political decisions.
This session is envisioned as a mixed session: each presenter will have the opportunity to share their work in a 5by5 (5 content slides in 5 minutes) format. Following the presentations, the session will give the audience and the participants the opportunity to discuss and share their views around 3 questions used to kick-off the conversation:
1. What are the challenges for cross-integration?
2. What are challenges are posed by tipping-points?
3. What are the most important metrics for evaluating the impacts, and have they changed/are they changing?

This session contributes to the annual meeting’s general theme on ‘Global Challenges, Regional Collaboration and the Role of Places’ by offering participants the opportunity to discuss advancements in one of the sub-fields most used by practitioners and policymakers alike for evaluating policies (both ex ante and ex post), and by highlighting challenges and advancements in innovative ways for establishing transdisciplinary approaches both in academia and in the civil society.

The session is open, although 3 authors already have expressed interest in presenting their works and serve as discussants. These are:

1. Marcello Graziano, Ruralis, Quasi-CGE approach for evaluating sport investments.
2. Paolo Biancone, University of Turin, The importance of Social Impact Assessment
3. Silvana Secinaro, University of Turin, A Social Impact model for cities’ development: the case of Torino (Italy)

Session Organisers:
Marcello Graziano, Ruralis, Norway and University of Connecticut, USA
Amanda Bertana, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
Adam Gallaher, Cornell University, USA
Stephen Axon, Bournemouth University, UK

It has been over a decade since the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) called for an expansion of the ‘Green Economy’ to more prominently address the ‘Blue Economy’ (Garland et al., 2019). Since Rio +20 the blue economy has emerged as a transformative and powerful framework that pays greater attention to the ocean’s role in sustainable economic development. Rio+20 also brought attention to the natural complexity of seascapes, and thus consequential need for coordinated action across countries, regions, and coastal communities. Additionally, geographical and regional issues are also emerging, as the Blue Economy is adopted ins countries whose seascapes are complex, such as the Mediterranean, and the human geography often includes large population centers, rather than declining rural areas (Graziano et al., 2022; Gallaher et al., 2023). Finally, the post Covid19 push for industrial policies and acceleration of transition processes have added new sociopolitical aspects to the Blue Economy – as to other regional development paradigms – well exemplified by the addition of ‘New Deal’ language and objectives in the policies of several countries (e.g. the US, see Gallher et al., 2023).

Using the Blue Economy as a theoretical framework, countries and regions have secured access to marine resources and developed policies for redrawing the role of their coastal- and waterscapes (REF). However, operationalization of the blue economy tends to be challenging. Key barriers such as the lack of a cohesive and universal conceptualization of policy-oriented definitions (Graziano et al., 2022), inter-sectoral competitions (Graziano et al., 2019), competing scales (Silver et al.; Alexander and Graziano, 2018), socio-cultural heritage, lack of effective evaluating policy procedures, and the complexities derived from land-water interactions (Graziano et al., 2017) have highlighted contentious issues embedded in ‘best practices’ for policymaking. In extreme cases, the Blue Economy has even been coopted by powerful states to support ‘big capital’ and undermine local communities access to marine resources (e.g. Silver et al., 2015; Clark, 2022).

Such misalignments of an understanding of the blue economy raise considerable questions and concerns that can be solved only overcoming the of a dichotomy top-down/bottom-up in regional development, and new understanding of the meaning and role of ‘community’ rights. Without reconciling these issues, the blue economy will continue to fall short in achieving its original intent—triple bottom-line: people, planet, profit.
Building upon the literature and application of the blue economy since its preconception at Rio+20, the objective of this session is to offer a space to move forward the theoretical understanding of the blue economy and identify successful and unsuccessful cases of its application. In doing so, this session will add to the practical considerations of blue economic activities to ensure that they reach the triple bottom-line.

Examples of themes for papers in this session include, but are not limited to:
• Works on the governance of the blue economy;
• Regional economic analysis of blue economy policies and sectors;
• Resource potential within the blue economy;
• Geographical analysis of links between emergent and incumbent blue economy industries;
• Socio-technical transitions of the blue economy, moving towards decarbonization;
• Just considerations of the blue economy

The topic of this special session fits well with the focus of the RSA Annual Conference on the global challenges brought by climate change and transition processes, and place-based policies. We envision this session as a semi-open one because the organizers will submit to present at least one paper, and have invited the following researchers to apply:

– C. Patrick Heidkamp, Southern Connecticut State University.
– Karyn Morrissey, Technical University of Denmark.

However, we would like to extend the invitation to the entire RSA community.

References
Alexander, K.A., and Graziano, M. (2018). Scale mismatches: Old friends and new seascapes in a planning regime. In Heidkamp, C.P. and Morrissey, J. (eds.). Towards coastal resilience and sustainability. London, UK: Routledge.
Clark, T.P. (2022). Racial capitalism and the sea: Development and change in Black maritime labour, and what it means for fisheries and a blue economy. Fish and Fisheries, 23(3): 648-662. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12639
Garland, M., Axon, S., Graziano, M. Morrissey, J., Heidkamp, C.P. (2019). The blue economy: Identifying geographic concepts and sensitivities. Geography Compass, 13(7): 12445. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12445
Graziano, M., Alexander, K.A., McGrance, S.J., Allan, G.J., and Lema, E. (2022). The many sizes and characters of the Blue Economy. Ecological Economics, 196: 107419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107419
Gallaher, A., Graziano, M., Axon, S., and Bertana, A. (2023). Breaking wind: A comparison between U.S. and European approaches in offshore wind energy leadership in the North Atlantic region. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 187: 113766. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2023.113766
Graziano, M., Billing, S-L., Kenter, J.O., and Greenhill, L. (2017). A transformational paradigm for marine renewable energy development. Energy Research & Social Science, 23: 136-147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2016.10.008
Graziano, M., Alexander, K.A., Liesch, M., Lema, E., and Torres, J.A. (2019). Understanding an emerging economic discourse through regional analysis: Blue economy clusters in the U.S. Great Lakes basin. Applied Geography, 105: 111-123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2019.02.013
Silver, J.J., Gray, N.J., Campbell, L.M., Fairbanks, L.W., and Gruby, R.L. (2015). Blue Economy and Competing Discourses in International Oceans Governance. The Journal of Environmental & Development, 24(2): 135-160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1070496515580797

Session Organisers:
Paolo Sospiro, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy – EUAbout Brussels, Belgium
Marco Ciro Liscio, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Daniele Bregoli, EUAbout Brussels, Belgium

This special session seeks to illuminate the contemporary landscape of the EU Macro Regions, evaluating their socio-economic, political, and environmental dimensions. With a focus on the latest developments and challenges, the session aims to invite scholars to present their research on the state of the art in EU Macro Regions main areas related to the four pillars (see figure: https://www.adriatic-ionian.eu/pillars/, blue growth, connecting the region, environmental quality and sustainable tourism) and not only. Through insightful analyses and case studies, participants will explore the efficacy of existing policies, identify emerging trends, and propose innovative strategies for sustainable development within these regions. Particularly, scholars should address three main weakness of the contribution of the research on macro regions policies: lack of data, increasing the number and quality of publication and policy recommendation. Particularly, for the EUSAIR macro region.

Session Organisers:
Sergio Palomeque, UDELAR, Uruguay
Pablo Galasso, UDELAR, Uruguay
Andrea Belmartino, GSSI, Italy

While there is a global consensus on the imperative shift towards sustainability, the debate in Latin America revolves around how to advance towards this transformation. From one side, considering the well-known challenges such as inequality, food security, terms of trade, and price volatility (Murray & Silva, 2014), territories in Latin America might benefit from a Just Transition approach. Indeed, it is argued that a green and just transition could help overcome the region’s structural traps (OECD et al., 2022). The just transition concept underscores a comprehensive nature, delving into key concepts such as labour justice, socio-technical transition, governance strategy, and public perception (Wang & Lo, 2021).

On the other hand, the potential of the twin transition (green and digital) might be an opportunity and a challenge for the region (Avila, 2021; Cathles et al., 2023). Both approaches sound both promising and challenging, how can they be advanced? Is there one that is more viable for the region? What can we learn from concrete experiences of transition in the territories of Latin America?

This special session discusses these transition approaches from a theoretical and applied perspective in Latin American economies. The following suggested topics are welcome:

• Just Transition
• Twin transition
• Innovation and sustainability
• Innovation and inequality
• Development of 4.0 technologies
• Green and digital transitions
• Theoretical debate under sustainable transition literature

References
Avila, R. (2021). Towards a “digital new deal” for Latin America: Regional unity for a stronger recovery. Heinrich Böll Stiftung. Washington, DC I.
Cathles A, Cardenas, G, Henriquez Leblanc, P (2023) Opportunities and Challenges for the Twin Transition in Latin America and the Caribbean – Inter-American Development Bank
Murray, W. E., & Silva, E. (2014). The political economy of sustainable development. In Latin America Transformed (pp. 117-138). Routledge.
OECD et al. (2022), Latin American Economic Outlook 2022: Towards a Green and Just Transition, OECD Publishing, Paris
Wang, X., & Lo, K. (2021). Just transition: A conceptual review. Energy Research & Social Science, 82, 102291.

Session Organisers:
Riccardo Crescenzi, London School of Economics, UK
Oliver Harman, London School of Economics, UK

This session will build upon RSA’s 2023 Annual Conference’s Opening Plenary ‘Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNRER6fGE9c) by bringing together policy-relevant academic research on the three main questions discussed. Those questions were,

1. Why will greening GVCs become an increasingly important area of study and discussion for sustainable investment and local development?
2. How can policymakers best build, embed, and reshape GGVCs for sustainable development through trade and FDI?
3. Where are our knowledge gaps and how regional studies research can help to address them in innovative ways?

This RSA 2024 special session will continue to address these issues as well as others—being in part led by the response to this open session.

It is an important area for a special session as the globe transitions to net zero emissions, more goods and services will become inherently green. This will create new and different “Green” Global Value Chains (GGVCs) as well as opportunities for “Greening” Global Value Chains. In turn, both changes may alter forces shaping local comparative advantage. We see this as an important theme when discussing RSA 2024’s Theme ‘Global Challenges, Regional Collaboration and the Role of Places’ with the sustainable transition a key global challenge and GVCs—green or otherwise—requiring regional collaboration for places to create and maintain value. Within this, there is a specific role for measurement, policy, and addressing knowledge gaps, the non-exhaustive focus of this session.

The session invites extended abstracts and papers from both academic researchers as well as researchers in policy-focused institutions.

Session Organisers:
Pádraig Carmody Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
James Murphy Clark University, USA
Richard Grant University of Miami, USA
Francis Owusu Iowa State University, USA

This closed session will present a new book by the organizers. Please see the description below.

Africa is the world’s most rapidly urbanizing region. The predominantly rural continent is currently undergoing an “urban revolution” unlike any other, generally taking place without industrialization and often characterized by polarization, poverty, and fragmentation. While many cities have experienced construction booms and real estate speculation, others are marked by expanding informal economies and imploding infrastructures. The Urban Question in Africa: Uneven Geographies of Transition examines the imbalanced and contested nature of the ongoing urban transition of Africa. Edited and authored by leading experts on the subject, this unique volume develops an original theory conceptualizing cities as sociotechnical systems constituted by production, consumption, and infrastructure regimes. Throughout the book, in-depth chapters address the impacts of current meta-trends—global geopolitical shifts, economic changes, the climate crisis, and others—on Africa’s cities and the broader development of the continent.

Presenters are Pádraig Carmody, James Murphy, Richard Grant and Francis Owusu.

Session Organisers:
Sierdjan Koster, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

We are proud to announce that Prof. Dr. Maria Abreu will be delivering the 2024 TESG lecture at the RSA conference. Prof. Abreu holds the position of Professor in Economic Geography at the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. Her extensive body of work spans a wide spectrum of topics within the field of Economic Geography, but they are all underscored by a strong sense of societal and academic urgency. Her research has delved into areas such as migration and integration, well-being and geographical discontent, as well as entrepreneurship and electoral geography.

In the lecture, Prof. Abreu will explore how multiple and often competing missions, activities, and strategies within the university influence the delivery of university knowledge to the external world through multiple channels, and how the regional context shapes this process.

Following the lecture, two referees will provide reflective insights, offering complementary perspectives on the content.

The TESG Lecture is an annual event organized by the Journal of Economic and Human Geography (TESG), the international academic journal of the Dutch Royal Geographical Society. It serves as a platform for a distinguished scholar in the field of Geography to address a contemporary societal challenge in the context of their academic contributions. We are delighted to host the fourth TESG lecture at the Regional Studies Annual Conference in Florence.

About the journal:
TESG, established in 1910, is one of the longest-standing journals in the field. It has been a leading international journal on contemporary research and debates in human geography. Building on a long tradition of empirical and theoretically informed research, the journal aims to provide a platform for the spatial social sciences. As such, it offers space for discussions, conceptual renewal and original research within the fields of economic, urban, cultural, political, development and population geography.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Maria Abreu
Two Referees – to be confirmed
Moderator: Prof. Dr. Sierdjan Koster, TESG editor)

Session Organisers:
Filippo Randelli, University of Florence, Italy

Our future is challenged by the magnitude of climate change. In order to be able to adapt and be confronted with such changes, it is essential to predict and model the effects of climate change. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis are worldwide applied with the aim of modelling and forecasting climate changes. Among different impacts of climate change, sea level rise (SLR) is one of the most challenging. Sea level rise describes the dynamic of volume expansion of oceans at the global scale. SLR is due to a complex of anthropic and geophysical factors. Overall, climate change is, unfortunately, fueling and accelerating SLR, thus de facto exacerbating its impacts. Reducing GHG and mitigating the causes of climate change is crucial to slowing SLR in order to minimize its impacts on coastal communities and ecosystems. However, this judicious global GHG reduction is a slow and difficult process requiring a long-term horizon; therefore, coastal areas (and to some extent inner land) all around the world are likely to experience SLR impacts sooner or later (for some it is already a problem), and some areas, given their land use and orography are more vulnerable than others. At the present day, several institutes have modeled the magnitude of oceans’ mass expansion to different geographical scales, but to the best of our knowledge, a spatially explicit detailed map of the geographical extent of such impacts on continental land use is not freely available.

This session aims to confront on GIS methodologies and detailed datasets illustrating the impacts of rising ocean levels and other impacts resulting from climate change on our regions.

Session Organisers:
Carl Grodach, Monash University, Australia
Jessica Ferm, University College London, UK

This open special session seeks to explore policy approaches to support urban production, and to collect papers focussed on the relationship between industry agglomeration and planning regulations. European Productive City policy and similar visions around the globe seek to promote specialized, green and high-tech forms of manufacturing reintegrated into mixed-use areas of the city (European Commission, 2022). In order to realise this vision, policy makers need a better understanding of how to support urban production while facing the realities of property markets and land use conflicts in cities driven by high-cost real estate (Ferm, 2023). Economic geography research has long focused on the external benefits of labour market pooling, shared infrastructure, specialised supply chains, and related drivers of agglomeration (c.f. Scott 1982; Duranton and Puga 2004). These factors impact industrial geographies, but an emerging literature indicates the important but underappreciated effect of land use policy (Grodach and Martin, 2021). For example, Shertzer et al. (2018) observe a “zoning-driven agglomeration effect” in which manufacturing moves to industrial zones in greater numbers over time. This factor in explaining physical proximity underscores the microfoundations of agglomeration economies yet is largely overlooked. At the same time, there are trends in planning policy in high-value global cities towards facilitating mixed use on industrially zoned land, and exploring alternative models that combine industry with other land uses, where industry is small-scale, digitised and low emission. Yet, the relationship between new forms of planning regulation and their impact on agglomeration economies are not well understood.

This open special session aims to generate discussion around themes such as:
• The role of planning and zoning reforms in fostering urban industry agglomeration
• New planning approaches to support mixed-use industry
• Impacts of real estate markets on urban manufacturing
• Firm responses to zoning and other planning mechanisms
• Planning values, institutions, and their effect on industrial policy
• Changing representations of manufacturing and industrial activity in the planning imaginary
• Policy learning and transfer for industrial planning

References
Duranton, G., and Puga, D. (2004). Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies. In: J. V. Henderson and J.-F. Thisse, eds. Handbook of regional and urban economics. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2063–2117.
European Commission (2022): The New Leipzig Charter. The transformative power of cities for the common good. Brussels.
Ferm, J. (2023). Hyper-Competitive Industrial Markets: Implications for Urban Planning and the Manufacturing Renaissance. Urban Planning, 8(4), 263-274.
Grodach, C. and Martin, D. (2021). Zoning in on Urban Manufacturing: Industry Location and Change Among Low-Tech, High-Touch Industries. Urban Geography, 42(4): 458-480.
Scott, A.J. (1982). Locational patterns and dynamics of industrial activity in the modern metropolis. Urban studies, 19(2), 111–141.
Shertzer, A., Twinam, T., and Walsh, R.P. (2018). Zoning and the economic geography of cities. Journal of Urban Economics, 105, 20–39.

Session Organisers:
Birgit Hoinle, University of Hohenheim, Germany
Doris Schmied, University of Bayreuth, Germany

The effects of the Covid19 pandemic and the Ukrainian war have raised an awareness of the dependency on food imports from globalized commodity chains. In addition, global challenges such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, or unfair working conditions in agriculture call into question the power dynamics of the current food systems and their environmental and socio-economic impacts. There has been an increasing interest in regionalisation of agro-food systems and especially in regional food networks that intend to reconnect peri-urban and rural agricultural producers with urban consumers. These networks comprise forms of direct marketing like farmers’ shops or markets, Community Supported Agriculture, regional corners in supermarkets, or supply of restaurants. More recently, regional producers have started to supply public catering entities, such as kindergartens, schools and hospitals.

This session aims to contribute to the debate on food networks that connect the countryside with the city or rural with urban areas. We therefore ask for contributions that deal with the following questions:

• Who are the multiple actors or stakeholders in regional food networking (farmers of different sizes, artisanal food producers, traders, retailers), and how is the interaction organized? What is the motivation of these actors (ethical, economic, regional identity, etc.)?
• How is the cooperation between producers and consumers organized in time and space (e.g. fixed space versus ambulant trade/hawking, means of transport, seasonality) and in view of the value chain?
• Which produce is involved (beyond vegetables and fruit)?
• What are the specific challenges for and obstacles to rural-urban food networks?
• What are the potentials of these networks regarding sustainable food system transitions in the region(s)? Which role do sustainability criteria, such as organic production or fair working conditions play in these formats?
• Which factors account for regional differences in the success or failure of networking? Does the size of city and surrounding countryside matter?
• Do old informal networks (fetching milk or eggs from a farmer nearby, getting venison from a hunter friend) still exist or are being revived?
• Should, and if so, how could networks be widened beyond niche producers and consumers? What would be the consequence of a “regional mainstreaming” in conventional wholesale and retail marketing? What are appropriate public policies to promote regional food networks?

We encourage empirical-based research contributions in order to discuss commonalities and context-specific differences in order to develop sustainable regional food systems, but would also appreciate theoretical considerations.

Session Organisers:
Simonetta Armondi, Politecnico di Milano – DAStU, Italy
Beatrice Galimberti, Politecnico di Milano – DAStU, Italy

Session Organisers:
Kadri Leetmaa, University of Tartu, Estonia
Bianka Plüschke-Altof, University of Tartu, Estonia
Bradley Loewen, NTNU, Norway
Ingmar Pastak, University of Tartu, Estonia

By ideally contributing to a more sustainable, innovative and healthier life, smartification is attributed many potentials for the future development of places. Do these promises hold true for rural areas? This special session critically engages with aspects of ‘smartness’ and ‘smartification’ in rural contexts. Moving beyond dominant readings of smartification as rather technology-, market- and urban-based, the session turns to interpretations of ‘smart’ in rural realities, paying particular attention to impacts on inequalities and processes of exclusion.

Despite recently receiving more academic attention, smart rurality has often been under-recognized and subjected to an urban smartification blueprint that does not necessarily fit rural realities or undermines their agency in locally (re)interpreting smartification. Our session thus proposes to focus on the possible socio-spatial divides smartification strategies are embedded in and questions to what extend smartification strategies incl. “smart specialization”, “smart social innovations”, or “smart village/countryside” initiatives can overcome or are further perpetuating these.

We welcome both theoretical and inspiring empirical studies that contribute to a new conceptualization of smartification in non-urban contexts. The panel is meant as a discussion forum as well as a platform to bring together recent research in the field and open opportunities for future collaborations. In particular, we invite:

• critical reflections on dominant readings of smart city and smart rurality concepts and their impacts on rural areas, including proposals for new interpretations of ‘smart’, ‘development’ and ‘innovation’
• empirical studies exploring aspects of rural power, agency and exclusion in ‘smart’ regional initiatives or local projects
• empirical studies on current uses of ‘smart’ in rural areas, including uses of and interactions with particular technologies
• case studies that shed light on questions of inclusion, participation and under-recognized examples of rural smartification and innovation

Session Organisers:
Simona Epasto, University of Macerata, Italy

In an era characterized by significant global transformations, understanding the impact of geopolitical influence on regional order is increasingly crucial. The session “The Impact of Geopolitical Influence on Regional Studies” aims to explore this evolving terrain, emphasizing the shift in academic and practical approaches to geopolitical studies.
Most recent studies have underlined that geopolitical influence is a key determinant of regional order. This insight is at the heart of our session, where we seek to analyse various aspects of this influence. A significant challenge in this field is the methodology used for measuring and understanding geopolitical impact.
Furthermore, the scientific study of geopolitics is undergoing a profound paradigmatic shift. From a research focus centred on states and the relationship between domestic and foreign policy, there is a move towards a method that focuses on the international system and the relationship between regional and global politics. This transition calls for a re-evaluation of traditional approaches and the development of new analytical frameworks.

We invite contributions that address:

• Theoretical and empirical analysis of geopolitical influence on regional policies and regional order;
• Case studies highlighting geopolitical dynamics in specific regions or countries;
• Explorations of the interplay between regional and global politics;
• Assessments of the impact of geopolitical tensions on regional economic and social development;
• Discussions on innovative methodologies for assessing geopolitical influence, reflecting the paradigmatic shift in the field.

This session provides a platform for a comprehensive exploration of the role of geopolitical influence in regional studies. It is an invaluable opportunity for academics and practitioners to contribute to a deeper understanding of this dynamic and complex field, especially in the context of the ongoing paradigmatic shift in geopolitical studies

Session Organisers:
Robert Knippschild, Leibniz Institut of Ecological Urban and Regional Development & TU Dresden, Germany
Zoellter Constanze, Leibniz Institut of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Germany
Ritu George Kaliaden, TU Dresden, Germany

Structural policy often continues to focus on job creation, according to the paradigm: the more, the better. However, regions affected by structural change have often seen shrinkage and brain drain in the past. They are currently facing shortage of skilled labour and thinned-out infrastructure, rather than unemployment. Thus, too little attention in policy-making is paid to the question of actual employment effects. It is unlikely that highly qualified personnel can be recruited in the regions concerned easily, for example, when large research facilities are established. Rather international recruitment, remote working or weekend commuting are to be expected, with limited demographic and structural effects. What is needed therefore is a place-specific, small-scale structural policy that focusses on technical and social infrastructure, accessibility, quality of life, regional identity, social cohesion and a vibrant civil society in cities, towns and neighbourhoods affected by structural change. However, there often seems to be too little time, insufficient capacity and too much political pressure. We are interested in contributions addressing the following questions:

• What are the interrelations between structural policy interventions and employment effects?
• What is the role of spatial scale with regard to the size of structural policy measures, decision-making structures, geographical scope and implementation periods?
• How can the creation of jobs be conceptualised and implemented in such a way that local employment effects actually materialise?

Theoretical considerations, empirical analysis and practice reports are welcome.

Session Organisers:
Ritu George Kaliaden, Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) Dresden, Germany
Bettina Knoop, International Institute (IHI) Zittau at Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

Places have been understood to be not mere ‘locations’ in space but sites of localized human experience (Tuan, 1975) and processes mediating between the particular and the universal (Entrikin, 1999). Regions, people and places have always been and continue to be connected in complex and interesting ways. The uniqueness or distinctiveness of places and their characteristics (Saleh, 1998) have played a role in region building through identity, competitiveness and branding (Zimmerbauer, 2009).

In the current context of global flows of ideas, resources and people, the link between people and specific physical locations have become tenuous. As people move, cross borders and occupy ever-changing and simultaneous positions as citizens, refugees, migrants, tourists etc. “place and region ‘locations’ become embodied and accumulate in their moving bodies and experience” (Thrift, 1999; Paasi, 2002). Personal identities overlap with national, regional and local identities in a complex tapestry of relationships between human beings and the places they inhabit (physically, socially, politically, metaphorically).

The shift towards mobility and connectivity has witnessed the emergence of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ regional identities (Terlouw, 2012), the former built around traditional cultural and historical place relationships; and the latter leveraging new temporary networks and economic relations evolving out of proximity, propinquity (Amin and Thrift, 2002) and throwntogetherness (Massey, 2005).

This leads us to revisit the idea of place and what role it plays in the current regional studies discourse. In this interdisciplinary session we invite theoretical as well as empirical contributions that examine how regions interact with places and place characteristics in the context of global connectivity, migration, vulnerability and rapid structural change.

The focus of this special session will be on, but not limited to the following themes:

• Cases from developed and developing world contexts highlighting how place characteristics and local place dynamics contribute to regional responses to global challenges
• Studies at a regional, city or neighbourhood scale that examine how place-based processes influence regional or national trends and shifts
• Learning from local, place-specific approaches to global challenges and flows
• The changing notions of place, identity and region in an increasingly mobile and globalized world
• The role of place in the processes of regional identity building
• How local place identities interact with regional identities in the current politically charged and globalized European context
• How regions leverage places for sustainable development, transitions and growth

Session Organisers:
Heike Mayer, Universität Bern, Switzerland
Jana Schmutzler, Universidad del Norte, Colombia
Susann Schäfer, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany

In 2009, Shane (2009) stated that “policy makers need to recognize that only a select few entrepreneurs will create businesses that will take people out of poverty, encourage innovation, create jobs, reduce unemployment, make markets more competitive, and enhance economic growth.” (p. 146). As a result, he argues, public policies should focus on high-growth entrepreneurs and not encourage ‘just anyone’ to become entrepreneurial. This argument seems to have become ingrained in the discourse surrounding the literature on Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (EE). Commonly referred to as “a set of interdependent actors and factors coordinated in such a way that they enable productive entrepreneurship within a particular territory” (Stam and Spigel 2016, 1), EE has become a widely recognized conceptual framework for academic research as well as an important policy tool adopted by governments throughout the world. And while the focus on productive entrepreneurship – defined by Baumol (1990) as “any entrepreneurial activity that contributes directly or indirectly to the net output of the economy or to the capacity to produce additional output” (p. 30) – is understandable given its impact on economic development, the necessity for EE to lead to an (almost exclusive) rise in high-growth firms (HGF) (Spigel, 2017) is questionable.

Not only do recent scandals call into question the idealization of unicorns (Tsvetkova et al., 2020); HGF and unicorns are deeply and inherently connected to various other types of business ventures that are crucial for achieving the scale required for high growth (Neumeyer et al. in 2018). As a result, Morris and Kuratko (2020) advocate for a portfolio approach, recognizing different kinds of entrepreneurship such as survival, lifestyle, managed growth, and aggressive growth businesses. At the same time, during the past decade most entrepreneurship research has focused on a rather narrow conceptualization of the conventional entrepreneur (Bakker and McMullen, 2023) with the “underdog” (Baron et al., 2018) or “missing” (OECD, 2021) entrepreneur such as female, migrant, refugee, elder, or other types of entrepreneurs often-times being overlooked.

Recognizing that EEs are social structures that may be fragmented (Scheidgen, 2020) or nested (Spigel, 2022) is important against this background as these structures may pose a barrier to accessing connections, resources, or knowledge provided by the EE for certain populations or types of entrepreneurs. While it is generally assumed that all entrepreneurs can equally access and receive support from an EE, empirical research has hinted at such barriers for women (e.g. Neumeyer, 2022; McAdam et al., 2019), vulnerable populations (Schmutzler et al, 2023; Zhao et al., 2021) or migrants (Jürgens et al., 2022) within EEs.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) envision that for social progress to take place resources need to be accessible to all communities (Volkmann et al., 2021). Along the same line, inclusive entrepreneurship drives socio-economic development (Zhao et al., 2021); it encompasses opportunity inclusiveness (Amaro da Luz, 2014), participation inclusiveness, and sharing inclusiveness (Du et al., 2021). And while recent literature has conceptualized Inclusive Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (Hameed et al., 2023), the question of how an EE can foster (parallel) support for the diverse set of entrepreneurs, how those fragmented social structures interact (or not) in generating such support and the role that different actors and institutional contexts can play in such an endeavor remains understudies. Similarly, how the various types of entrepreneurs may support each other generating a regional portfolio of entrepreneurship has received little attention.

Hence, this invitation for submissions promotes research that illuminates the diverse nature of entrepreneurship and its relationship with EE support. We welcome both conceptual and empirical studies utilizing various methodologies, conducted in a variety of geographical settings, to enrich the conversation on ecosystem research.
Examples of themes for papers in this session include, but are not limited to:

• Discrimination and biases in EE
• Diverse EE (for sustainable development)
• Inclusive EE (for sustainable development)
• Policies for diversity and inclusion in EE
• Intersectional approaches to placed-based entrepreneurship
• Female entrepreneurs and EE
• Minority entrepreneurs and EE
• Migrant entrepreneurs and EE
• Refugee entrepreneurs and EE
• “Silver” entrepreneurs and EE

Session Organisers:
Manuel Wolff, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany
Annegret Haase, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, Germany
Alan Mallach, Center for Community Progress, United States

With the official end of the COVID-19 emergency, it is appropriate to begin the process of placing the effects of the pandemic on cities into a larger context of potential transformational changes to urban conditions and the resulting changes to urban policy and governance. While a rich body of literature has already focused on short-term effects of the pandemic, large questions about its significance and long-term effects on urban dynamics and governance, as well as future visions of urbanism and urban growth remain. We look at this within the framework of the polycrisis environment. This framing allows us to account for the multiple effects of interlocking crises such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the emergence of an energy crisis, as well as the growing refugee crises, all of which affected European countries simultaneously with the pandemic, as well as what might be characterized as the “rolling crises” of climate change, larger geopolitical conflict, and the decay of the neoliberal globalization project. Little research has been done on the question of to what extent the simultaneous occurrence of other crises mitigated or exacerbated COVID-induced effects, as well as the perception of and discourse about those effects. Even less is known about the temporality of these effects and the extent to which they are likely to lead to long-lasting societal impacts, affecting inequality, justice, and social cohesion.

This Special Session is made up of selected papers from a forthcoming special issue being prepared for the journal Cities. Both the special issue and this special session will attempt to fill some of the above research gaps by exploring the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in bringing about changes in urban conditions and governance responses, in order to begin identifying and conceptualizing lessons appropriate for urban development in polycrisis environments. Hence, the suggested session will offer a fruitful discussion forum for a broader audience interested in polycrisis. Presentations will engage with questions in four key areas:

• Understanding mechanisms of change: What direct changes/effects can be identified as being due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and which of those changes/effects are accelerated, reinforced, or mitigated by policy and governance responses?
• Contextualizing dynamics: What significant differences can be seen between pandemic-induced changes compared to historical changes or changes in other spatial contexts? What relationships and interactions are there between pandemic-induced changes and the effects of simultaneous crises (e.g. refugees, war, energy)? Do other crises mitigate or exacerbate COVID-induced effects?
• Learning from change: To what extent and in what ways did the COVID-19 pandemic lead to new processes/developments in policy or social action? How did those processes and developments reflect the interplay (or conflict) between national, regional and local levels in terms of policy and governance?
• Looking ahead: Of the many effects of the pandemic, and the changes to urban policy and governance changes that emerged as a result, which can most probably be expected to be temporary effects and changes, and which could become long-term/persistent effects? Which key factors appear to be most decisive in determining whether a change is transitory or permanent?

The session will include short paper presentations (approximately one hour total) and a podium discussion of overarching questions between the presenters and the audience (approximately 30 minutes).

LIST OF SPEAKERS

1. Manuel Wolff, Annegret Haase, Alan Mallach (confirmed): Conceptualizing patterns of change in urban conditions and governance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic – lessons learnt for urban transformations in a polycrisis environment.
2. Simón Sánchez-Moral, Alfonso Arellano, Roberto Díez-Pisonero (confirmed): Teleworking and internal migration patterns in the metropolitan region of Madrid during the pandemic.
3. Dieter Rink, Annegret Haase (confirmed): Growth against the trend? Leipzig’s development within the Covid-19 crisis.
4. Elena Batunova (tbc): How does national policy impact the local capacity to react to crisis? Insights from Rostov-on-Don, Russia, during the COVID-19 pandemic
5. Rachel Barber (tbc): Uneven Population and Populist Politics: The Changing State of Alberta, Canada.

Session Organisers:
Julie Miao, University of Melbourne, Australia
Nicholas Phelps, University of Melbourne, Australia

The very rationale of economic clustering/agglomeration appears to be under threat once again. Previous suspicions and debates on the importance of physical proximity were aroused by technological advancement, especially information and telecommunication technologies and infrastructure, almost three decades ago (Miao, Benneworth and Phelps 2015). Empirical work since has reaffirmed the influence of distance/proximity by distinguishing between information and knowledge, between routine and cognitive sectors (Coenen, Moodysson and Asheim 2004). The present challenges to the dynamics of industry clustering – those posed by the Covid pandemic and a widespread concern for health and wellbeing – exceed industry and other specifics. Indeed, some of the most densely developed metropolitan regions such as New York, London, Melbourne, Tokyo, and Shanghai, are still suffering from high vacancy rates in their central business districts and the acceleration of more dispersed working and living patterns. At the same time, the quantity and quality of distance learning and collaborating are on the rise all the time (Li and Phelps 2018), suggesting multiple trends and factors that influence the future of localized industry clusters.

We therefore see this special session as an important moment to reflect upon, re-assess, and project, some of the global frontiers of knowledge regarding processes of industry clustering and agglomeration. Do we require new methods and criteria to define spatial concentrations of industry and their boundaries? What further theoretical developments can be made to help understand the causes, nature and evolution of industry clusters/agglomeration? What urban scales are the most salient to understanding economic concentration? What should we do with existing declining or stagnant clusters or those having emerged and in some instances planned on a very defined local scale. How do clusters organized across various scales compete internationally? How do different sectors forge their spatial footprints and likewise, how do different urban regions accommodate, grow, and possess the governance to support industry clusters? Are we seeing even more segmented living and working patterns such that industry clusters exist without propinquity to paraphrase Webber (1963)? What are socio-economic inequalities that attend processes of industry clustering?

In sum, while industry clustering and agglomeration remain the subject of perennial interest, new challenges and opportunities continued to present themselves to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers as they seek to understand and act upon the evolution of these embodiments of urban economic development.

Reflecting on these questions, this special session welcome both theoretical and empirical papers that address, but not exclusive to, the following themes:

• New criteria and methods in identifying clusters.
• New theoretical approaches to understanding clusters/agglomerations.
• The spatial (re)configuration of industry clusters/agglomerations.
• The manifestation and underlying forces of clustering, de-clustering, and re-clustering.
• The transformation and regeneration of declining/stagnant agglomerations and clusters.
• The trickling down effects of cluster transformations on consumption, commuting, and wider metropolitan economic spatial structures.
• Inter- and intra-cluster relations.
• The emergence of virtual clusters and their spatial, cultural and social manifestations.
• Inequity and exclusion in cluster formation and transformation.
• New frontiers of governance practices and challenges with respect to cluster policy.

Session Organisers:
Patrizia Casadei, London School of Economics, UK
Riccardo Crescenzi, London School of Economics, UK
Simona Iammarino, University of Cagliari, Italy and London School of Economics, UK

A variety of shocks – financial and economic crises, Covid-19, natural disasters and geo-political tensions and conflicts – have contributed to unanticipated economic downturns and growing uncertainty on a global scale. These shocks have affected supply and demand of goods and services, putting under pressure the functional and geographical distribution of production along global and local value chains. As a result, with a possible re-configuration of Global Value chains (GVCs) with growing concentration of such chains and networks within macro-regions, scholars and policy makers urgently need a deeper understanding of the sectoral and geographical dimension of GVC at multiple levels and scales. This calls for rigorous research able to assess the effects of the participation of cities and regions into global, continental and local value chains, and the implications of global shocks for local economic development and innovation. However, capturing the intersection of sectoral and regional dimensions in GVCs is still an open issue and significant effort is needed to achieve a coherent empirical portrait of the subnational geographical footprints of GVCs across industries. This is mainly explained by data limitations that make it difficult to track the complex configuration and geographies of GVCs and only allow for a high-level representation of the distribution of GVC stages globally. Moreover, detailed work on specific sectors and products, which have their own features in terms of structure, technological regime and geography, remains patchy with empirical evidence often limited to specific segments.

This session therefore invites contributions adopting a regional approach to GVC analysis, applying industry-specific lenses, and innovatively combining quantitative and/or qualitative methods aimed at building a solid knowledge base for regional development and innovation policies in advanced and less advanced regions and countries. The objective of this special session is to highlight new methodological proposals for examining regional and sectoral dynamics of GVCs and to expand the extant knowledge on their structure, underlying technological conditions and geography. Within this theme, we likewise welcome contributions aimed at understanding the implications of global shocks for the functional and geographical distribution of production along value chains across different industries.

Session Organisers:
Han Chu, Kiel University, Germany
Robert Hassink, Kiel University, Germany
Chun Yang, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China

The ‘influencer economy’ is a recent innovation emerging from digital platforms and their abiliity to bridge virtual and physical space to both create new industries (e.g., digital content industry, mobile games, live streaming industry, online retail, online hailing etc.), as well as newly emerging platform ecologies (Ibert et al., 2022). Although there is now an increasing economic geography literature on several ‘economies’ that emerged because of digitalization and digital platforms, such as the platform economy (Kenney and Zysman, 2020) and the gig economy (Anwar and Graham, 2020), so far, little research has been done on the influencer economy, although it represents an increasingly important part of the platform economy (Economist, 2022; Hung et al., 2022; Engels, 2022, 2023; Shapiro). In China, its contribution to the economy is estimated at $210bn, that is 1.4% of GDP, whereas 75% of marketers in the US spend money on them (Economist 2022). According to Shapiro and Aneja (2019, 19) “14.8 million Americans earned income by posting their creations on Instagram, WordPress, YouTube, Tumblr and five other platforms”. The big thriving of the influencer economy have become a global phenomenon (Backaler, 2018).

The emergence of the influencer economy is highly conditioned by the platform economy (Kenney and Zysman, 2020), and is part of the broader concepts of the creator economy (Florida, 2022; Rieder et al., 2023) and attention economy (Davenport and Beck, 2001; Kubler, 2023). Social media influencers are individuals who earn money directly from personal brand building and monetize their influence due to sponsored content (Khamis et al., 2017). Influencers can become celebrities, and some celebrities, who gain their fame through traditional media, such as film, can become influencers, so there is some overlap between the two terms. Typical industries using influencers include fashion, cosmetics, beauty, plastic surgery, gaming, travel, and luxury branding. Influencers can be regarded as ‘circulators’ (Pike, 2013) of brands and value creation, between producers, consumers and regulators. They affect reputation, symbolic value and can also hide undesired associations (Ibert et al., 2019) or political messages (Schneider, 2021). Culture and norms and values affect influencers’ style, and vice versa, for instance in the case of China with its Wanghong culture and wanghonglian aesthetic (Wang and Picone, 2023; Abidin, 2016). Influencers are impacting traditional business models, including not only offline sales channels but also traditional e-commerce channels. The influencers in “half-e-commerce platforms” represent an enhancement based on the network effects of the platform economy and monopolistic effects (Chu et al., 2023). In China, the sales capability of a single live broadcast by top influencers can even surpass the annual sales of an entire normal shopping mall (Baijiahao, 2023). However, research on this influential power is limited, let alone on restrictions and controls. After the emergence of the platform economy, the influencer economy has once again changed the way products are produced and supplied in traditional manufacturing, retailing and service industries and further changed the distribution and method of profit capture. Moreover, influencers increasingly affect place marketing and place branding (Banks, 2022).

Recently, some articles in economic geography touched upon the influencer economy, such as in work by Repenning and Oechslen (2023) on “digipreneurs”, which is broader than influencers, including producers and entrepreneurs, and Poorthuis et al. (2020) and their work on the fashion industry from an attention economy and social media perspective.

Our session aims at opening the geographical black box of the influencer economy further with papers that not only map the influencer economy in a descriptive way, but also focus on research questions that are affected by several perspectives and paradigms in economic geography, such as evolutionary, relational, institutional economic geography. We welcome papers both empirical, theoretical, as well as policy-related papers, as well as comparative papers, on the influencer economy, from a broad range of industries and locations.

Topics and questions might include 1) what affects the influencer economy and 2) what the influencer economy affects:

• Where and how did the most powerful influencers emerge? Why there?
• How did they develop through time and concerning geographical impact?
• Where and why did some influencers have long time success? Where and why did some fail?
• What kind of skills did they have before they entered the influencer economy? What is the biography of influencers?
• What and where are the networks and interactions that were built up by influencers?
• How do influencer economies differ across regions and countries? What is the role of institutions and regulations in facilitating or hindering the influencer economy?
• How do influencers impact different industries? What is the difference during these processes?
• How do influencers affect the industries they work for? Do they interact with users and customers and does that interaction lead to innovation or product improvement?
•  How do influential people impact their communities and places?
• What is the role of influencers on politics?
• How does culture affect influencers’ style?
• What role do influencers play in place branding and place marketing?

On the basis of the special session, we are planning to submit a proposal to an international economic geography journal after the conference.

References
Abidin, C. (2016). Agentic cute (^.^): Pastiching East Asian cute in influencer commerce. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 2(1), 33-47.
Anwar, M. A., & Graham, M. (2020). Hidden transcripts of the gig economy: labour agency and the new art of resistance among African gig workers. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 52(7), 1269-1291.
Baijiahao. (2023). Li Jiaqi’s single live-streaming session can generate sales equivalent to the annual revenue of 20,000 small brick-and-mortar stores. Baijiahao 2023-04-24, https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1764023814408315994
Banks, D. A. (2022). The attention economy of authentic cities: How cities behave like influencers. European Planning Studies, 30(1), 195-209.
Backaler, J. (2018). A global phenomenon: The rise of influencers around the world. Digital influence: Unleash the power of influencer marketing to accelerate your global business, 37-53.
Chu, H., Hassink, R., Xie, D., & Hu, X. (2023). Placing the platform economy: the emerging, developing and upgrading of Taobao villages as a platform-based place making phenomenon in China. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 16(2), 319-334.
Davenport, T. H., & Beck, J. C. (2001). The attention economy. Ubiquity, 2001(May), 1-es.
Economist (2022). The rise of the influencer economy. The Economist 31-3-2022.
Engels, B. (2022). Creator economy: bis an die Grenzen der Aufmerksamkeit. IW-Report 95-2022.
Engels, B. (2023). Traumjob Influencer: Likes, Views und das große Geld? IW-Report 46/2023.
Florida, R. (2022). The rise of creator economy.
Hung, K., Tse, D. K., & Chan, T. H. (2022). E-Commerce influencers in China: Dual-route model on likes, shares, and sales. Journal of Advertising, 51(4), 486-501.
Ibert, O., Hess, M., Kleibert, J., Müller, F., & Power, D. (2019). Geographies of dissociation: value creation, ‘dark’ places, and ‘missing’ links. Dialogues in Human Geography, 9(1), 43-63.
Ibert, O., Oechslen, A., Repenning, A., & Schmidt, S. (2022). Platform ecology: A user‐centric and relational conceptualization of online platforms. Global Networks, 22(3), 564-579.
Kenney, M., & Zysman, J. (2020). The platform economy: restructuring the space of capitalist accumulation. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 13(1), 55-76.
Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2017). Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of social media influencers. Celebrity Studies, 8(2), 191-208.
Kubler, K. (2023). Influencers and the attention economy: the meaning and management of attention on Instagram. Journal of Marketing Management, 1-17.
Pike, A. (2013). Economic geographies of brands and branding. Economic Geography, 89(4), 317-339.
Poorthuis, A., Power, D., & Zook, M. (2020). Attentional social media: Mapping the spaces and networks of the fashion industry. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110(4), 941-966.
Repenning, A., & Oechslen, A. (2023). Creative digipreneurs: Artistic entrepreneurial practices in platform-mediated space. Digital Geography and Society, 4, 100058.
Rieder, B., Borra, E., Coromina, Ò., & Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2023). Making a Living in the Creator Economy: A Large-Scale Study of Linking on YouTube. Social Media+ Society, 9(2), 20563051231180628.
Schneider, F. (2021). China’s viral villages: Digital nationalism and the COVID-19 crisis on online video-sharing platform Bilibili. Communication and the Public, 6(1-4), 48-66.
Shapiro, R., & Aneja, S. (2019). Taking root: The growth of America’s new creative economy.
Wang, X., & Picone, I. (2023). The art of attracting attention: a process model of Chinese toubu vloggers’ strategies to create online identities and self-brands. Celebrity Studies, 14(3), 333-349.

Session Organisers:
Tom Hashimoto, Vilnius University, Lithuania
Anna Maria Dzienis, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Poland
Hiroshi Kaneko, University of Warsaw, Poland

The transition to decarbonised economies faces various challenges across different dimensions especially in the energy sector (Papadis & Tsatsaronis, 2020). Although many of these challenges are specific to each region, reflecting locally embedded socio-economic needs, decarbonisation is frequently analysed at national and supranational levels, given the strong agenda-setting powers of central governments. In essence, the capacity of regions to tackle diverse challenges arising from decarbonisation and their enduring socio-economic repercussions has largely been disregarded as a research topic. For instance, a coastal region could potentially gain advantages from transitioning to a hydrogen-based energy supply chain. However, if this region lacks the necessary research and development capabilities, it might merely operate as an energy source producer, without necessarily bolstering the region’s economic foundations.

Given this context, the special session is open to receiving papers dedicated to exploring the role of geographic locations in the process of decarbonisation. Specifically, we are keen on receiving both theoretical and empirical works that delve into regional resilience (Martin & Sunley, 2015). Here, ‘economic resilience’ is understood as the capacity to adapt one’s economic activities to mitigate future shocks, as opposed to the ability to endure ongoing shocks (‘robustness’) (Gereffi et al., 2022). We also encourage papers with evolutionary perspectives that highlight a region’s emergence on a new growth trajectory (cf. Boschma, 2015). The session will cover various themes, including but not limited to:

• Spatial mismatch between production and consumption: The geographical distribution of renewable energy resources often differs from areas of high energy demand. For instance, regions abundant in solar or wind energy might not coincide with the locations where energy consumption is highest. This disparity can create inefficiencies and economic disincentives for transitioning to renewables due to the cost of long-distance energy transmission.
• Infrastructure and scale economies: Establishing the necessary infrastructure for renewable energy generation, such as wind farms, solar installations, or hydroelectric plants, requires significant investment. In some cases, smaller regions or communities might lack the scale to justify large investments in renewable energy infrastructure, hindering their ability to benefit from economies of scale.
• Technological challenges and research investment: Advancing renewable energy technologies to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness remains a crucial challenge. Research and Development (R&D) investments are essential for overcoming technological barriers and making renewable energy more competitive with fossil fuels in terms of reliability, cost, and scalability.
• Economic disparities and regional development: The benefits of decarbonisation efforts might not evenly distribute across regions. Often, knowledge-intensive industries and services related to renewable energy technologies are concentrated in larger economic centres. This concentration can lead to disparities where regions supplying resources for decarbonisation may not experience proportional economic development or benefits.
• Community engagement and socioeconomic impact: Local communities providing resources like land for renewable energy projects might face social and economic disruptions without receiving adequate benefits. Ensuring that local communities are involved, consulted, and derive socio-economic advantages from renewable energy initiatives is crucial for social acceptance and long-term sustainability.

Addressing these challenges requires comprehensive policies that consider regional disparities, technological innovation, investment in infrastructure, and community involvement. Encouraging collaboration between different stakeholders, including governments, industries, local communities, and researchers, is pivotal for a successful transition towards decarbonised energy systems while ensuring economic and social cohesion. We hope that this special session will serve as a pivotal platform for engaging and meaningful discussions.

References:
– Boschma, Ron. (2015) Towards an Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience. Regional Studies, 49(5): 733-751.
– Gereffi, Gary, Pananond, Pavida and Pedersen, Torben. (2022) Resilience decoded: The role of firms, global value chains, and the state in COVID-19 medical supplies. California Management Review, 64(2): 46-70.
– Martin, Ron and Sunley, Peter. (2015) On the notion of regional economic resilience: Conceptualization and explanation. Journal of Economic Geography, 15: 1-42.
– Papadis, Elisa and Tsatsaronis, George. (2020) Challenges in the decarbonization of the energy sector. Energy, 205: article 118025.

Session Organisers:
Letizia Donati, University of Florence, Italy
Louise Kempton, Newcastle University, UK
Marco Bellandi, University of Florence, Italy

Universities have the potential to address great contemporary challenges in their combined technological, environmental, and societal dimensions, contributing to sustainable paths of regional and local development. They can do so through teaching, research and third mission (Radinger-Peer and Pflitsch, 2017; Bayou et al., 2020). This latter refers to knowledge interactions, both directly and with the help of specific teaching and research projects, between universities and the outside society. They translate scientific knowledge and high culture into practical applications, fostering innovation and performing various type of community engagement activities that extend beyond traditional academic roles (Perkmann et al., 2013; Perkmann et al., 2021). Specifically, universities can enter complex partnerships with local actors and communities (Bellandi et al., 2021) to support the socio-cultural bases of new sustainable regional development paths and culture-led urban regeneration initiatives (Vallance et al., 2020; Cinar and Coenen, 2023). The great contemporary challenges ask further research on the multifaceted ways through which universities can cultivate such community relations and contribute to sustainable culture-led futures (Thomas et al., 2023).

Therefore, this special session intends to collect and discuss new contributions on the role of universities, and other research institutions, which actively engage with the socio-cultural fabric of their surrounding communities and try to foster sustainable regional development and urban regeneration. We expect to add useful insights and related recommendations for universities and for key policy agencies.

We invite to submit abstracts that align with the theme of “Cultivating Communities.” Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics.

1. Cultural Heritage Preservation and Revitalization: explore how universities together with other local institutions can contribute to the preservation and revitalization of cultural heritage within regions, fostering a sense of identity.
2. Inclusive Innovation Ecosystems: examine the role of universities in nurturing inclusive innovation ecosystems that promote social entrepreneurship and address regional societal challenges.
3. Community-Driven Sustainability Initiatives: showcase community-driven sustainability initiatives led by universities, focusing on environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability.
4. Culture-led Urban Planning and Design: discuss how universities can actively engage with local communities in urban planning and design processes, fostering sustainable and culture-led urban regeneration and development.

While this session is open to contributions from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, the chairs will actively enrich the dialogue by presenting their work. In the event of a substantial number of abstract submissions, provisions will be made to organize an extra session, ensuring ample opportunities for accepted abstracts to be presented and discussed.

– Louise Kempton: “The role of universities in fostering a more inclusive approach to innovation in post-industrial cities: Lessons from Newcastle and Pittsburgh”
– Marco Bellandi and Letizia Donati: “Universities engagement in the Humanities: exploring the contribution of Italian studies to regional development.”

References
Bayuo, B. B., Chaminade, C., & Göransson, B. (2020). Unpacking the role of universities in the emergence, development and impact of social innovations–A systematic review of the literature. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 155, 120030.
Bellandi, M., Donati, L., & Cataneo, A. (2021). Social innovation governance and the role of universities: Cases of quadruple helix partnerships in Italy. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 164, 120518.
Cinar, R., & Coenen, L. (2023). Universities’ contribution to culture and creativity-led regional development: Conflicting institutional demands and hybrid organizational responses. Industry and Higher Education, 37(2), 237-250.
Perkmann, M., Tartari, V., McKelvey, M., Autio, E., Broström, A., D’Este, P., … & Krabel, S. (2013). Academic engagement and commercialisation: A review of the literature on university–industry relations. Research policy, 42(2), 423-442.
Perkmann, M., Salandra, R., Tartari, V., McKelvey, M., & Hughes, A. (2021). Academic engagement: A review of the literature 2011-2019. Research policy, 50(1), 104114.
Radinger-Peer, V., & Pflitsch, G. (2017). The role of higher education institutions in regional transition paths towards sustainability: The case of Linz (Austria). Review of Regional Research, 37(2), 161-187.
Thomas, E., Pugh, R., Soetanto, D., & Jack, S. L. (2023). Beyond ambidexterity: universities and their changing roles in driving regional development in challenging times. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 1-20.
Vallance, P., Tewdwr-Jones, M., & Kempton, L. (2020). Building collaborative platforms for urban innovation: Newcastle City Futures as a quadruple helix intermediary. European Urban and Regional Studies, 27(4), 325-341.

Session Organisers:
Tim Rottleb, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus – Senftenberg, Germany
Johannes Staemmler, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus – Senftenberg, Germany
Suntje Schmidt, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany

During past decades, universities, other higher education, and research institutions (HERIs) have been assigned a plethora of tasks with regards to urban, regional and national economic development as complements to excellent research and teaching. Under a neoliberal hegemony, especially universities changed from only being exclusive sites of academic knowledge pursuit and elite reproduction and also became mass producers of higher skilled labour and commercialisable innovation. HERIs in general are expected to expand their societal impact far beyond their former core activities of research and education. In that regard, both policy-makers as well as decision-makers and science managers at HERIs, but also academics themselves, are engaged in debates on knowledge and technology transfer, impact, and ‘third missions’. Numerous buzzwords such as the ‘triple helix’ or the ‘quadruple helix’ are being conceived and sometimes discarded again (Berghaeuser & Hoelscher, 2020; Jessop, 2017; Taxt et al., 2022; Tomasi et al., 2022).

Lately, in the context of facing grand global challenges such as climate change, global energy transition, and sustainability transformation, such debates have gained renewed traction. These challenges are met by regions to different extends and degrees. Hence, regional solutions might contribute with small wins to larger transformation processes. For instance, old-industrial regions and regions facing processes and consequences of phasing out of established energy sources such as lignite and related industries need to find developments paths not only for energy transition, but are also tied up with ecological as well as economic transformations. Governments and societies seem to expect HERIs to jump into the breach of regional economic and ecological transition processes and enrol them in their respective strategies (Breul, 2022; Herberg et al., 2021). HERIs are tasked with searching for answers and practical solutions to shape transformation processes, e.g., with targeted research combined with knowledge transfer activities meeting regional transformation missions. Thus, HERIs are scrambling to fulfil high expectations that are laid upon them, but many questions remain open.

HERIs’ evolving role and their expected societal impact has attracted research from various subdisciplines of the social sciences concerned with regional development. Scholars have investigated universities’ regional economic role by focussing on their contributions to human capital formation, spill-over of knowledge, wages and consumption effects, regional embeddedness, or their social impact on communities (Glass & Cruz, 2023; Glückler et al., 2018; Goddard et al., 2016; Kleibert et al., 2023). Crucially, research has shown that despite noteworthy examples where HERIs have played a key role in establishing a thriving regional innovation system, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and policy makers, seeking to create the next ‘Silicon-somewhere’, often overestimate HERIs expected regional economic impact (Kempton et al., 2021).

This two-parted special session aims to bring together current research on the role of HERIs in regional transformation processes with decision-makers and science managers from such institutions that are involved in shaping and implementing that role. The first part of this special session will consist of an open session for research presentations while the second part will engage pre-selected science managers in a closed session panel discussion. For the first part we welcome empirical and/or theoretical contributions that focus on HERIs in cities and regions facing transformation processes. We seek papers that are concerned with (but not limited to):

• Opportunities and challenges for HERIs in regional economic development
• HERIs in the political economy of transformation processes
• HERI-based developmental strategies and policies of governments
• HERIs and smart specialisation
• Societal embeddedness and impact of HERIs
• HERIs as actors in regional innovation systems
• Differences between various types of HERIs in regard to their role in transformation processes
• Mechanisms and formats of knowledge transfer
• New forms of HERIs engagement

References
Berghaeuser, H., & Hoelscher, M. (2020). Reinventing the third mission of higher education in Germany: Political frameworks and universities’ reactions. Tertiary Education and Management, 26, 57–76. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11233-019-09030-3
Breul, M. (2022). Setting the course for future diversification: The development of a regional transformation strategy in a German lignite mining region. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 9(1), 581–599. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2022.2120413
Glass, C. R., & Cruz, N. I. (2023). Moving towards multipolarity: Shifts in the core-periphery structure of international student mobility and world rankings (2000–2019) // Moving towards multipolarity: Shifts in the core-periphery structure of international student mobility and world rankings (2000-2019). Higher Education, 85(2), 415–435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00841-9
Glückler, J., Panitz, R., & Wuttke, C. (2018). The economic impact of the universities in the state of Baden-Württemberg. In P. Meusburger, M. Heffernan, & L. Suarsana (Eds.), Geographies of the university (pp. 479–509). Springer International.
Goddard, J., Hazelkorn, E., Kempton, L., & Vallance, P. (Eds.). (2016). The Civic University: The Policy and Leadership Challenges. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollbook/edcoll/9781784717711/9781784717711.xml
Herberg, J., Staemmler, J., & Nanz, P. (Eds.). (2021). Wissenschaft im Strukturwandel: Die paradoxe Praxis engagierter Transformationsforschung. oekom verlag. https://doi.org/10.14512/9783962388256
Jessop, B. (2017). Varieties of academic capitalism and entrepreneurial universities. Higher Education, 73(6), 853–870.
Kempton, L., Conceição Rego, M., Reinaldo Alves, L., Vallance, P., Aguiar Serra, M., & Tewdwr-Jones. (2021). Putting universities in their place: An evidence-based approach to understanding the contribution of higher education to local and regional development. Routledge. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kxp/detail.action?docID=6664553
Kleibert, J. M., Schulze, M. P., Rottleb, T., & Bobée, A. (2023). (Trans)regional embeddedness and the resilience of offshore campuses. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 10(1), 23–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2022.2157323
Taxt, R. E., Robinson, D. K. R., Schoen, A., & Fløysand, A. (2022). The embedding of universities in innovation ecosystems: The case of marine research at the University of Bergen. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift – Norwegian Journal of Geography, 76(1), 42–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2022.2041718
Tomasi, S., Szávics, P., Aleffi, C., Ferrara, C., Márton, A., Urbančíková, N., dos Santos, P., Ribeiro, A., Cavicchi, A., & Hudec, O. (2022). Drivers and challenges of RIS3‐related university engagement: Insights from five European regions. Regional Science Policy & Practice. https://doi.org/10.1111/rsp3.12567

Session Organisers:
Byeongsun Ahn, University of Vienna, Austria
Yuri Kazepov, University of Vienna, Austria

Contrary to the common conception of universal convergence among cities around global capitalism, a growing body of literature within urban studies has shown that structural challenges following neoliberal trends influence cities in variegated ways. Scholars in this debate argue that regional answers to global challenges vary according to their territorial dynamics, within which existing institutions and actors at multiple levels of governance interact and produce context-bound outcomes. This embedded nature of policymaking at the urban scale provides local governments and civil society a specific political space of constraints and opportunities, from which they set the policy agenda, formulate creative strategies and implement social innovation. An implication is that research into the local outcomes of emerging – and converging – governance practices will require a special understanding of the contextual peculiarities of the urban scale in question, ranging from intersecting structural and institutional factors to available technical and political capacities. This special session aims to broaden our (comparative) knowledge of such context-bound formulation and implementation of new governance processes and practices – and barriers and opportunities therefor. To this end, it invites contributions that deal with – although not limited to – the following issues of practicing and researching (collaborative) governance experiments as an alternative mode of local innovation:

• Conflicts/tensions in emerging governance experiments and their processes/outcomes vis-à-vis the local context
• Structural and institutional challenges for localizing international best practices
• Opportunities and limits of citizens, practitioners and researchers in collaborative governance
• Discretionary power of street-level bureaucrats in the implementation of social innovation
• Analytical frameworks for comparative research on policy circulation process and outcome

Session Organisers:
Jessica Ferm, University College London, UK
Myfanwy Taylor, University College London, UK
Elena Besussi, University College London, UK
Amanda Brandellero, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Janet Merkel, TU Berlin, Germany

This open special session advances international debate on workspace displacement within urban research. Within urban economics, there has been a lack of consideration of the diverse spaces of work that accommodate local economies, and places of work have been relatively neglected more broadly within urban planning studies compared to housing, public space or environmental issues. Here, we focus on the low-cost workspaces – from individual/micro and shared space facilities to industrial districts – that underpin urban and regional economies and support the majority of urban lives and livelihoods. Such workspaces accommodate diverse uses and occupiers, including retail and markets, industry and manufacturing, creative work, personal services, and community groups, community businesses and charities. These activities make up much of the foundational or everyday economy in cities, underpinning the ‘high value’ sectors of the economy focused on by urban policy – yet they are difficult to value according to traditional measures (Bua et al, 2018; Brandellero & Niutta, 2023). As cities develop, low-cost workspaces and the lives and livelihoods they sustain can come under increasing pressure from ‘higher-value’ competing land uses (Ferm, 2023, 2016; Martin & Grodach, 2023). This has implications for the wider urban and regional economies, but also on question of spatial justice and equity; migrant and minoritized traders and businesses are often disproportionately affected by workspace displacement (Taylor 2020, González 2018, Roman-Velazquez 2014, Hall 2021).

We invite wide-ranging contributions to this open special session from diverse perspectives, including on themes such as:

• Low-cost workspace as critical infrastructure supporting businesses and activities that underpin the wider economy;
• (Re-)conceptualising ‘value’ in relation to small business and low-cost workspace;
• Politics, planning and practice emerging from, and countering, workspace displacement;
• The impact of workspace displacement on wider urban and regional economies, on social and economic diversity, and on inclusive and just local economies;
• Exclusionary urban development processes affecting spaces of work and livelihoods – in whose interests is the city being remade?;
• Neoliberal Urbanization and its impact on alternative economic practices;
• Spaces of work and governance arrangements accommodating foundational, everyday, and diverse economies;
• Methodological challenges in workspace displacement research across the global north and south.

References:
Brandellero, A & Niutta, A 2023, ‘ Making sustainability transitions in collaborative spaces of making: Exploring opportunities and limitations in Turin ‘, Cities, vol. 136, 104233, pp. 1-10.
Bua, A., Taylor, M. Gonzalez, S. (2018). Measuring the value of traditional retail markets: towards a holistic approach. New Economics Foundation. https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/retail-markets.pdf
Hall, S.M. (2021). The Migrant’s Paradox: Street Livelihoods and Marginal Citizenship in Britain. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ferm, J. (2023). Hyper-Competitive Industrial Markets: Implications for Urban Planning and the Manufacturing Renaissance. Urban Planning, 8(4), 263-274.
Ferm, J. (2016). Preventing the displacement of small businesses through commercial gentrification: are affordable workspace policies the solution?. Planning Practice & Research, 31(4), 402-419.
González, S. (2018) Contested markets, contested cities: gentrification and urban justice in retail spaces. Studies in Urbanism and the City series, Routledge, Abingdon
Martin, D., & Grodach, C. (2023). Resilience and adaptation in gentrifying urban industrial districts: The experience of cultural manufacturers in San Francisco and Melbourne. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 47(4), 625-644.
Roman-Velázquez, P. (2014). Claiming a place in the global city: Urban regeneration and Latin American spaces in London. EPTIC, Political Economy of Technology, Information and Culture Journal, 16(1), 84-104.
Taylor, M. (2020). The role of traders and small businesses in urban social movements: the case of London’s workspace struggles. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 44(6), 1041-56.

Session Organisers:
Federica Rossi, DAStU – Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Marco Biagetti, National Institute for Public Policies Analysis (INAPP) and John Cabot University in Rome, Italy
Giuseppe Croce Sapienza, Università di Roma, Italy
Ilaria Mariotti, DAStU – Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Sergio Scicchitano, National Institute for Public Policies Analysis (INAPP), Global Labor Organization (GLO), and John Cabot University in Rome, Italy

According to ILO (2020), remote working (RW) entails that employees carry out all or part of their job from a location other than their usual workplace (i.e., a public space or a facility of an employer or client). RW was first widely tested during the COVID-19 pandemic, although it existed far before. Businesses and employees were compelled to use it as a contingency plan to carry on with their operations as the virus spread. However, the COVID-19 pandemic just accelerated the changes in the labor market linked to the digital transition. After the pandemic, employers and employees alike are increasingly in favor of a new hybrid working (HW) arrangement that includes a few days of work from home (Eurofound, 2022).

Recent studies confirm that RW and HW arrangements have become a “new normal”, given their benefits both for workers and companies. On the one hand, indeed, RW/HW enables employees to reduce the amount of time spent on weekly commutes, freeing up more time for family and leisure. On the other hand, RW/HW allows companies to contain fixed costs, by adopting a multilocation model, with smaller owned offices, shared offices, collaborative spaces, and coworking spaces closer to their employees.
This special session will debate the impacts of RW and HW arrangements from different perspectives; examples of research questions include but are not limited to:

• Does RW/HW impact the workers’ habits, well-being, and work-life balance?
• What are RW/HW’s impacts on the geography of work and residential location choices?
• Does RW/HW affect workers’ productivity? Which business strategies have been adopted to manage it?
• Has RW/HW affected wages, income distribution, and gender gap?
• What are the potential benefits of RW/HW on urban mobility, commuting, and the environment?

References
Alfano V., Mariotti I., Marra M., Vecchione G. (2023). I want to break free: the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on work–life balance satisfaction. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 10(1): 70-88.
Barrero J.M., Bloom N., Davis S.J. (2023) The evolution of work from home. Journal of economic perspectives, 37(4), Fall 2023.
Biagetti M., Croce G., Mariotti I., Rossi F., Scicchitano S. (2024). The call of nature. Three post-pandemic scenarios about remote working in Milan. Futures, forthcoming.
Bonacini, L., Gallo, G., Scicchitano, S. (2021). Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’ with COVID-19. Journal of Population Economics, 34: 303-360. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-020-00800-7
Croce, G., Scicchitano, S. (2022). Cities and Working from Home in Italy in the Post COVID-19 Age. Italian Journal of Public Policies, n. 2/2022.
Eurofound (2022), Telework and teleworkability during COVID: An analysis using LFS data, Eurofound working paper, Dublin.
Felstead, A., Jewson, N., Phizacklea, A., Walters, S. (2002). Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance. Human Resource Management Journal, 12(1): 54-76.
ILO (2020). Defining and measuring remote work, telework, work at home and home based work. ILO policy brief. https, //www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—stat/documents/publication/wcms_747075.pdf
Lee K. (2023) Working from home as an economic and social change: A review. Labour Economics 85, 102462. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102462

Session Organisers:
Markku Sotarauta, Tampere University, Finland
Laura James, Aalborg University, Denmark
Roman Martin, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Maria Tsouri, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway

This special session aims to explore the dynamic interplay between human agency and processes of regional restructuring. Regional restructuring is a multifaceted process influenced by many factors and actors, including economic structures, social dynamics, institutional arrangements, environmental considerations, and a wide array of regional actors, internal and external to a region.

Regional industrial restructuring is typically seen as a process by which companies diversify into new fields, relying on a unique combination of skills, knowledge and other assets accumulated in the past. While early theories mostly considered firms and their knowledge assets, a lively academic debate has emerged around various drivers and mechanisms for regional restructuring and related path development, including policy, change agency, public and private demand, institutional and innovative entrepreneurship, local and non-local knowledge linkages, and other types of firm- and system-level assets. This special session aims to advance our understanding of regions’ economic, social, and environmental transformation by focusing on assets, agency, and policy. We are interested in drivers, obstacles, processes and mechanisms for regional industrial restructuring and new path development. We are also keen on having papers examining how actors influence regional development paths, overcome path dependencies, and foster innovative and sustainable growth.

We welcome theoretical contributions and empirical studies, especially, but not exclusively, from the Nordic territory.

The special session has three main objectives:
(1) to advance regional restructuring theories, focusing on assets, agency, and policy.
(2) to introduce new methodological approaches to analyse and understand regional restructuring and path development and
(3) to provide empirical evidence on drivers, obstacles, processes and actors for regional industrial restructuring in different geographical settings.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
– The role of agency in regional restructuring
– Path development and path creation in regions
– Overcoming path dependencies in regional development
– Institutional dynamics and path dependency
– The interplay between agency and structures in regional development
– Case studies of successful or failed agency and path development

Session Organisers:
Simone Sasso, European Commission – Joint Research Centre, Spain

Rural areas face several challenges, including population reduction, aging, limited access to services and digital connectivity, as well as scarce economic diversification. These challenges pose threats to the sustainability and resilience of rural communities. Innovation and entrepreneurship can play a central role in transforming rural areas, empowering rural communities, and increasing their resilience.

Understanding and measuring innovation and entrepreneurship in rural areas is challenging, given the distinct nature of innovation in rural contexts compared to urban settings. In this session, we invite quantitative and qualitative papers that contribute to increasing the understanding of the characteristics, determinants, and geographical distribution of innovation and entrepreneurship in rural areas. Given the central role of connectivity for rural areas, we also welcome papers examining how connections and collaborations among internal and external actors are made or unmade, and the role these connections play in strengthening innovation ecosystems for rural areas.

Session Organisers:
William Rossiter, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Anne Green, University of Birmingham, UK

The concept of polycentrism has been influential in regional and urban studies and attractive to policy makers for many years (Harrison et al., 2023). This appeal stems from the manner in which polycentrism, as a territorial development strategy, recognises the presence of and/or potential for balanced development among multiple centres (Derudder et al., 2022) and offers the potential to take advantage of agglomeration economies while avoiding or minimising the disadvantages sometimes associated with large contiguous conurbations. It is also an extremely flexible concept that can and has been applied, including as a spatial imaginary, by researchers and policy makers at a variety of spatial scales and in diverse national and international contexts.

Equally, the concept of polycentricity itself is contested and somewhat challenging to define:

“polycentricity is an elusive concept which is not easy to define precisely. Rather, it provides a frame of reference for thinking about territorial development which can be applied at a variety of different spatial scales and in essence describes the interconnections and mutual interdependence that exists or may develop between places” (Shaw & Sykes 2004; 285)

Similarly, although many regions may be described as morphologically polycentric, the extent to which they can also be described as functionally polycentric is often itself a matter of some debate – even for some of the most prominent and frequently cited examples of polycentrism (e.g. Mejers et al 2021).

As an approach to territorial development the polycentric model emphasises the importance of providing/planning for the kind of good infrastructure that can facilitate the development of spatial divisions of labour and complementarities between neighbouring centres. This in turn raises the fundamental question about the appropriate governance models for regions with polycentric characteristics. These governance models must be capable of discharging significant co-ordinational functions across different geographical scales and policy domains; brigading support for a common territorial development strategy; whilst also reconciling the interests of constituent places with those of the polycentric whole.

This special session invites papers exploring one or more of the following research questions in a variety of national and international contexts:

1) What does polycentric regional and urban governance look like in theory and in practice?
2) What are the institutional capabilities necessary to make polycentric territorial development work?
3) How does geographic scale relate to functional competencies delegated to places in polycentric regions?
4) How can polycentric territorial development strategies at the pan-/mega-regional scale be reconciled with place-based development of constituent local areas?
5) What are the implications of polycentric territorial development for the scaling/re-scaling of the sub-national state?

Keywords:
Asymmetric Polycentrism
Space and Scale
Governance (multi-level)
Layered institutions
Competition and Cooperation
Rescaling the sub-national state
Place-based policy in the context of polycentrism
Pan-regions/mega-regions
Polycentric regions
Spatial imaginaries and polycentric urban and regional development

References:
Derudder B, Meijers E, Harrison J, Hoyler M & Liu X (2022) Polycentric urban regions: conceptualization, identification and implications, Regional Studies, 56:1, 1-6, DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2021.1982134
Harrison J, Hoyler M, Derudder B, Liu X & Meijers E (2023) Governing polycentric urban regions, Territory, Politics, Governance 11:2, 213-221.
Hooghe, L. & Marks, G. (2016) Community, Scale, and Regional Governance: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance, Volume 2, Oxford University Press, London.
Meiers, E., Burger, M. and van Oort, F. (2021) Randstad Holland between functional entity and political desire, in Zonnefeld & Nadin Eds.
Parr, J. (2004) The Polycentric Region: A closer inspection, Regional Studies volume 38 issue 3.
Parr, J. (2014) The Regional Economy, Spatial Structure and Regional Urban Systems, Regional Studies, volume 48 number 12, 1926-1938.
Shaw D. & Sykes, O (2004) The concept of polycentricity in European spatial planning: reflections on its interpretation and application in the practice of spatial planning, International Planning Studies, 9:4, 283-306, https://doi.org/10.1080/13563470500050437.
Zonneveld, W. and Nadin, V. (Edited) (2021) The Randstad: A Polycentric Metropolis, Routledge

Session Organisers:
Christoph Zangger, University of Bern, Switzerland
Amélie Bank, University of Bern, Switzerland

Neighborhood, local and regional networks can provide support during times of crisis, for example to vulnerable groups, and promote the integration into the wider society (LaLone 2012, Zangger 2023). They offer resources, contribute to the integration into local labor markets, and they enable contact based on a shared location. In the wake of COVID-19, such networks are increasingly organized and maintained online (Hampton 2016, Robaeyst et al. 2022), depicting a new form of localized social capital.

In this session, we seek contributions that look at the formation and the effect of local and regional networks from an interdisciplinary perspective. Example questions for papers in this session include, but are not limited to:

• How do place-based local and regional networks foster the economic integration of residents and firms?
• To what extent do place-based networks promote political participation and the integration into the wider society?
• Who is more likely to engage in (digital) place-based networks? Who is left behind?
• Do place-based online networks complement or rather replace existing spatial networks?
• How can local and regional (online) networks promote health and well-being?

We welcome both theoretical and empirical (quantitative/qualitative/mixed methods) contributions and are looking forward to an active exchange of ideas.

References
Hampton, Keith N. 2016. “Persistent and Pervasive Community: New Communication Technologies and the Future of Community.” American Behavioral Scientist 60(1):101–24. doi: 10.1177/0002764215601714.
LaLone, Mary B. 2012. “Neighbors Helping Neighbors: An Examination of the Social Capital Mobilization Process for Community Resilience to Environmental Disasters.” Journal of Applied Social Science 6(2):209–37. doi: 10.1177/1936724412458483.
Robaeyst, Ben, Bastiaan Baccarne, Jonas De Meulenaere, and Peter Mechant. 2022. “Online Neighborhood Networks: The Relationship Between Online Communication Practices and Neighborhood Dynamics.” Media and Communication 10(2):108–18. doi: 10.17645/mac.v10i2.5129.
Zangger, Christoph. 2023. “Localized Social Capital in Action: How Neighborhood Relations Buffered the Negative Impact of COVID-19 on Subjective Well-Being and Trust.” SSM – Population Health 21:101307. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101307.

Session Organisers:
Mikko Weckroth, Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE), Finland
Michael Kull, Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE), Finland

The Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine have significantly disrupted global trade and value chains. In addition to direct effects on international trade, these events have also had nuanced spatial implications on maintaining the vital functions of societies and local communities around the world. Hence, this special session explores the intricate interplay between geopolitics, economic geography, and regional studies in the context of green transition. At large, the focus of this special session is on spatial dimension of energy systems, nutrient and material cycles, and different circular bioeconomy solutions and strategies under the imperative of green/sustainability transition but acknowledging the context of recent geopolitical trends and turmoil.

Geopolitical context shapes economic geography at global level but currently also within countries affecting to development of regional inequalities and the conditions of green transition. For example, the concept of “resources peripheries”, typically attached to the global north/south axis, has been recently debated in the context urban-rural and core-periphery relations and related policies fostering green transition. The linkages between peripheralization and geopolitics has emerged especially in Eastern Europe countries where the uneven economic geography and role of “lagging regions” is currently also a question of national security and defense. This convergence between regional-, security- and sustainability policies have been emphasized for example in Finland where foreign investments to sustainable energy (mainly on wind power) have been focused to western and coastal regions and “emptying out” Eastern Finland is of a growing concern. Hence, this spatial unbalance of green energy is not only concerning national economy but connects also to geopolitical threats including hybrid operations. Within this framework, the session seeks analyses that would, for example, highlight the geopolitical drivers behind more localized energy systems or investigate how shifts in global power dynamics influence regional energy strategies. This could also include taking a critical look at ‘energyscapes’, or landscapes transformed by renewable energy projects, and how they are redefining traditional notions of spatial justice.

Besides the apparent effect on energy systems, the recent geopolitical events have also altered the conditions and initiatives for nutrient recycling, which refers to the system where nutrients and organic carbon are transferred through society from soils to products, and finally to waste or side-streams. The recent geopolitical shifts have created new incentives to utilize microbial or plant-based products, including recycled fertilizers, to improve soil health and reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture. Reducing the dependency for Russian fossil-based fertilizers have consequently created a new political demand for recycled fertilizers. These geopolitical calls are in line with ecological arguments for more localized nutrient cycles as well as the goals of EU’s strategic autonomy, national self-sufficiency, and security of supply. Hence, the special session would especially welcome analyses that evolve, for example, into regional and localized strategies to nutrient cycles, circular bioeconomy, and at large sustainability solutions in agriculture driven by geopolitical trends.

In sum, this special session would welcome all theoretical, conceptual, or empirical analyses that focus on entangling the interplay between shifting geopolitical conditions and strategies for green transition at variating spatial perspectives. At large, an ambitious aim of the session would be to provide insights on how to orchestrate natural resource management (in various forms and levels of governance) leading to green transition by finding a balance between supply of required critical materials and minerals with spatially balanced economic development in the context of shifting geopolitical conditions.

Session Organisers:
Bettina Knoop TU Dresden (IHI Zittau), Germany
Robert Knippschild Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) Dresden; and TU Dresden (IHI Zittau), Germany
Constanze Zoellter Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) Dresden, Germany

Shrinking cities are commonly portrayed as deprived places characterized by multiple socio-spatial challenges in the pertinent literature. This session, however, invites a shift in perspective. It fosters a comprehensive understanding of shrinking cities not just as lost places, but as spaces of possibilities in the light of global challenges. Contributions are welcome that explore the opportunities presented by urban shrinkage for ecologically sustainable and socially equitable urban transformations.

Key questions include, but are not limited to:

• What opportunities does shrinkage present for urban transformations? How do socio-spatial dynamics related to urban shrinkage contribute to these opportunities?
• What is the scope of action of local actors in this context? How do structures and dynamics at other spatial levels interfere with the local?
• What material, institutional or social restraints prevent the actualization of the identified opportunities for transformation? How can these restraints be overcome?

Both theoretical analyses and empirical contributions are invited.

Session Organisers:
Iraklis Stamos, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Spain
Angela Sarcina, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Spain

The special session is motivated by the critical role of local and regional governments in Europe in advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The session aims to provide a platform for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders to explore and address the challenges and opportunities associated with localizing the SDGs. It seeks to foster a dialogue that bridges the gap between global aspirations and regional realities, focusing on innovative monitoring mechanisms, impact assessment models, and the complex interlinkages between different SDGs and their targets at the regional level. The research and policy objectives of this special session are to encourage submissions that offer insights into the type of actions, governance structures, strategies, and partnerships that facilitate SDG implementation, as well as methodologies and techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of these actions. Additionally, the session aims to explore the role of public participation, education, and ownership in fostering a sense of local ownership and engagement with the SDG agenda. It also seeks to showcase cross-disciplinary and innovative approaches to integrating the SDGs into regional development plans and policies, with a focus on addressing localized sustainability challenges through Science-Technology-Innovation (STI) strategies. The overarching goal is to highlight collaborative efforts and promote a clear link between research and practice in the context of local and regional sustainable development.

This session will focus on the following themes:

1. Monitoring Mechanisms: Contributions on innovative indicators and tools for tracking the progress of SDGs at the regional level. We encourage submissions detailing how data is collected, analyzed, and employed to inform policy and practice.
2. Local Actions and Governance: Case studies and analyses of initiatives taken by local and regional governments to operationalize the SDGs. We seek insights into the type of actions, governance structures, strategies, and partnerships that facilitate SDG implementation.
3. Impact Assessment Models: Methodologies and techniques used to evaluate the effectiveness of actions toward achieving the SDGs. Submissions should focus on the assessment of outcomes.
4. SDG Interlinkages: Research addressing the complex relationships between different SDGs and their targets. We are interested in contributions that explore synergies, complementarities, and trade-offs, providing a holistic view of SDG interactions.
5. Local Ownership and Engagement: Discussions on fostering a sense of ownership and involvement among local communities in the SDG agenda. Contributions should address the role of public participation, education, and ownership.
6. Cross-disciplinary and Innovative Approaches: Papers that demonstrate novel and interdisciplinary approaches to integrating the SDGs into regional development plans and policies, and Science-Technology-Innovation (STI) strategies.
7. From Global to Local: Contributions on how Science-Technology-Innovation (STI) policy-making and priority-setting can address localised sustainability challenges

Submissions may take the form of theoretical explorations, empirical studies, policy analyses, or best practice showcases. We particularly encourage contributions that highlight collaborative efforts, cross-border initiatives, and those that demonstrate a clear link between research and practice.

Session Organisers:
Oliver Rafaj, University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia
Ilaria Mariotti, Politecnico di Milano,Italy
Carles Méndez-Ortega, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya,Spain
Chiara Tagliaro, Politecnico di Milano,Italy
Federica Maria Rossi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

In recent years, profound transformations have reshaped the organizational structures of work, particularly in locations where work is linked with shifts in production and service processes. These changes underscore the values of flexibility, adaptability, and autonomy, reflecting diverse work arrangements, heightened mobility, and specialized skill sets. Consequently, work has evolved into a more dispersed and hybrid form, extending beyond traditional office spaces to encompass home environments, recreational areas, and collaborative spaces. This transformative wave has given rise to a proliferation of novel workspaces, including coworking spaces, makerspaces, hackerspaces, creative hubs, and more, while combining with multiple building types, for instance mixing office facilities with residential retail, transport, hotels, and others. The increasing prevalence of digital nomads and the popularity of blending work with leisure/vacation, epitomized by ‘workation,’ further accentuate these changes and expands the limits of when and where work is done. These shifts in work dynamics and spatial preferences contribute significantly to the transformation of city landscapes, with both positive and negative effects, from influencing real estate dynamics and potentially driving property value increases and rental trends, to even sparking gentrification processes. This Special Session aims to consolidate current research findings on the evolving spatial distribution of workplaces, associated territorial dynamics, resultant policies, and the opportunities and challenges presented across diverse political, social, and economic contexts.

The session seeks to unravel the consequences of these spatial dynamics on the broader spectrum of work-related environments.

Session Organisers:
Athanasios Kalogeresis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Sophia Skordili, Horokopio University of Athens, Greece

The proposed special session aims at throwing light to some of the aspects of the entrepreneurship – urban development nexus that have not been researched yet by the academic community and offer new ways at looking at the ontologies of Micro and Small Businesses (MSBs), in relation to urban development, resilience and the production of urban space. More specifically, we are interested in papers that will investigate the emergence and wider impacts of MSBs in a critical urban studies and economic geography perspective, with a special (although not exclusive) emphasis on papers that aim to:

1. provide a better understanding of the emergence and variations of entrepreneurship and SMBs in the context of rising social and economic challenges in contemporary cities,
2. critically analyze the impact of entrepreneurship on business owners/ employees and on urban/neighborhood development processes,
3. explore the various paths through which cities, viewed as complex multiscalar systems and sources of considerable external economies interrelate with the emergence of entrepreneurship.
4. investigate the interplay between locally rooted small businesses and tourism.
5. explore the impact of MSBs to a more sustainable and equitable urban development.

Session Organisers:
Sulevi Riukulehto, International Society for Regional History/University of Helsinki, Finland

International networks have grown increasingly complex. They are requiring units of administration that connect with economic and social reality. Europe of Regions is an essential term in the EU jargon. European Union is operating with regions in many levels, not only states and the regions located inside of national borders. New non-governmental agencies and institutions have emerged. Some areas may never have had an historical identity, though they can be reasonably restricted by some research criteria. Exemplifying cases can be found around the world. In Europe, attention has been paid to unusual regions. More than 150 such regions have been differentiated or named in Europe mostly by the influence of new regionalism.

Such phenomena as globalization and international business draw attention to the level of continents and free trade areas. The concept of macro-region is commonly used by economic historians and globalization researchers. They may study large zones, such as Southeast Asia, Central Europe, Mercosur area in Latin America or European development corridors (e.g. a zone from Northern Italy to the Benelux-countries). The macro-regions may be artificial, or then perhaps not.

This special session is open for all scholars interested in the outcome and transformation of international and cross-border regions and their temporal change. The session is organized in co-operation with International Society for Regional History. In the contributions to this session and the discussion about it, there is special attention to the cross fertilization between regional studies and historical sciences.

Session Organisers:
Myfanwy Taylor, University College London, UK
John Tomaney, University College London, UK
Estelle Evrard, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

This session explores the potential role for research and universities in the coproduction of place-based policy with communities. Coproduction of policy is relatively well established within health and social care but is beginning to be explored within the built environment professions and place-based policy more broadly (eg Lee et al 2023, Future of London 2023). Recent research in left-behind places in the UK has begun to redirect the role of local and regional policy towards empowering and resourcing local change-makers (Tomaney et al 2023). Their local knowledge, lived experience, attachments, pride and hope in place make them key agents of local and regional economic development. These shifts have profound implications for researchers and universities, raising wider questions about the purpose and impact of research, the training of professionals and universities’ relationships with both immediate local communities and the wider social and political communities which secure and shape their roles. Our session invites wide-ranging exploratory engagement with these issues in order to advance theoretical, methodological and policy debates on the coproduction of place-based policy.

Some of the questions we hope to explore include:

• What forms of knowledge and labour are involved in the coproduction of place-based policy, and what does this mean for our understanding of professionals and policy-makers?
• How might the value or benefit of coproduction of place-based policy be usefully defined, measured and compared, including to facilitate learning and capacity-building between places?
• What new needs and demands does the coproduction of place-based policy raise for built environment and local/regional development research?
• What kinds of new organisational modes and institutional forms are required for the coproduction of place-based policy, with what implications for researchers, universities and funders?
• How does the coproduction of place-based policy relate to ideas and movements for foundational and everyday economies, just transition, degrowth, postextractivism and regenerative economies, etc?
• What can the coproduction of place-based policy learn from long traditions of feminist and participatory/activist research methods and ethics?
• How might the coproduction of place-based policy in the global North relate to much more developed postcolonial and indigenous struggles to re-shape planning and development in the global South?

Session Organisers:
Grete Gansauer Montana State University, USA
Michael Howcroft University of Glasgow, UK
Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins University of Gloucestershire, UK
Joanie Willett, University of Exeter, UK

The political and academic rediscovery of so-called ‘left-behind places’ and ‘geographies of discontent’ has ignited new interest in peripheral places and regions. Now, research and policy must look beyond headline narratives that collapse the complex diversities of the myriad places that are ‘non-core’, or on the ‘edge’ of core activities, including but not limited to rural, semi-rural, post-industrial, de-populating and sparsely populated areas. That too many places have not mattered for too long calls for new ways of reckoning with peripherality, and for problematising the complex, multidimensional roles of peripheral places and regions amid global challenges.

This Edgy Matters special session is convened by EdgeNet, the RSA’s research network on peripheral places and regions. We aim to convene critical conversations among a growing community of researchers who are working to reinvigorate the study of peripherality within (and beyond) regional studies. For 2024, we ask whether reducing non-core regions to a ‘left behind’ condition minimises their (potential) role/s in collaborative responses to global challenges. To be marginal is to have limited agency at the edge of core spaces of political life – but also to forge identities, find empowerment, and articulate values. How might social, economic and geographic “margins” represent new fronts for transformative thinking and action?

We invite papers that engage with questions of peripherality, broadly conceived, and challenge the social, spatial, economic, environmental, and temporal inter-relationships that shape how peripheries are imagined, governed, lived and felt. We are especially interested in ‘edgy’ contributions that bring fresh methodological and conceptual insights, or introduce new areas and ideas to RSA audiences. Perspectives ‘from the margins’ and scholars who may themselves feel ‘on the edge’ of regional studies are also warmly welcomed.

Potential topics might include:
• ‘Edgy’ examples of social, cultural and political change in non-core areas
• Role of peripheral spaces and non-cores in broader national sustainability transitions, or in response to global challenges
• Theorisations of lived, felt and/or imagined peripheralism (e.g. rural, remote, post-industrial, topological, peripheries-within-cores).
• Reinterpreting the relationships between cores and peripheries.
• Peripheries as spaces of exploitation, extraction, collaboration, and innovation.
• Peripherality in territorial policy, place-based policy and sustainable developmental pathways.
• Local economic futures and territorial well-being in peripheral places.

Session Organisers:
Ugo Fratesi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Ida Musialkowska, Poznan University of Business and Economics, Poland
Laura Polverari, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Anabela Marques Santos, European Commission – Joint Research Centre, Spain
Francesco Molica, European Commission – Joint Research Centre, Belgium

As the debate on the 2028+ Multiannual Financial Framework is gearing up, the EU is at a critical juncture, caught between ‘permacrisis’, political flux and a return to austerity policies.

The aim of the Special Session is to explore the future of EU Cohesion Policy in this challenging context:

• Should the objectives and the governance of EU Cohesion Policy be reconsidered, to reflect novel and upcoming challenges (e.g. climate, health, social justice,) and to enhance flexibility and performance?
• Can any lessons be learnt from past implementation? What does the evaluation evidence from the 2014-2020 cycle of Cohesion Policy and the emerging evidence from the current programming period suggest about how to improve the policy’s relevance and effectiveness?
• What should be the linkage with the European Semester? How could the synergy with the European Semester be improved?
• Should the multi-level nature of EU cohesion policy be re-thought, e.g. along the lines of the RRF and CAP or, on the contrary, to pursue more bottom-up involvement of LRAs and stakeholders?
• Is administrative capacity still an issue? Where and in which specific areas of intervention? What capacity building initiatives should be devised to support policy implementation? What synergies can be fostered with wider, domestic public administration reform agendas?
• How ‘politicised’ is EU Cohesion Policy and what are the effects of this politicisation?
• Should cohesion policy be reformed to enhance its contribution to a European citizenship?
• What is the contribution of cohesion policy to the twin transition? To what extent cohesion policy can support the new industrial goals of the EU?
• What should be the role of smart specialisation strategies in the future? What challenges have emerged from their implementation so far?

Session Organisers:
Huiwen Gong, University of Stanvanger, Norway
Emil Evenhuis, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Netherlands
Markus Grillitsch, Lund University, Sweden
Ron Martin, University of Cambridge, UK
Johan Miörner, Lund University, Sweden

In an era where regions and cities face the multifaceted polycrisis, including the climate crisis, demographic shifts, energy scarcity, and biodiversity loss, there’s an urgent need for an intellectual paradigm shift (Martin, 2021). This shift must critically reassess our research priorities, theories, and empirical focus while committing to the principles of fair, equitable, and sustainable development (Gong, in press; Martin, 2021). Recent discourse increasingly advocates for a future-oriented and normative approach in policy and research (Coenen and Morgan, 2020; Gong, in press; Martin, 2021; Tödtling et al., 2022; Yeung, 2023).

Scholars argue that research in regional studies must move beyond a backward-looking perspective, taking into account the directionality of future development that is collectively and normatively shaped (Fuller, 2023; Gong, in press; Grillitsch and Sotarauta, 2020). On the one hand this necessitates redefining ‘development’ beyond economic metrics and formulating new, geographically grounded imaginaries of social progress at various levels of scale (Harrison, 2022; Martin, 2021). On the other hand, it also involves embracing a “politics of the subject” (Gibson-Graham, 1997) that challenges scholars to redefine their identity, fostering new methods (e.g. scenario-building, design thinking) as well as new connections with social entrepreneurs and societal movements.

This special session seeks to examine the necessary future-oriented thinking in economic geographical research to guide regions toward more equitable and sustainable futures. We invite theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions addressing the following topics:

1. The creation of new possibilities from geographies of the impossible (Pohl 2023) and its potential pitfalls
2. The impact of policies on varying social perceptions of regional futures (e.g., hope vs. despair). Challenges in addressing the multiscalar factors shaping regional futures and the role of geographical perspectives in fostering desirable futures.
3. Understanding and theorizing the despair and hopelessness in marginalized regions and the emergence of new hopes (Tups et al., 2023).
4. Integrating forward-looking and retrospective approaches to enhance regional policymaking and leverage future opportunities for sustainable, inclusive development (Grillitsch and Sotarauta, 2020).
5. Innovative futuring techniques and tools for fostering sustainable and equitable regional futures.
6. The evolving role of researchers from retrospective to prospective in regional development, ethical considerations in intervening in regional futures, and the impact on relationships between researchers and other stakeholders.

We welcome diverse viewpoints and innovative approaches to these pressing issues. Join us in shaping the dialogue on the futures of economic geographies and their role in forging sustainable, equitable pathways.

Reference
Coenen, L., and Morgan, K. (2020). Evolving geographies of innovation: existing paradigms, critiques and possible alternatives. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift-Norwegian Journal of Geography, 74(1), 13-24.
Fuller, C. (2023). Uncertainty, fictional expectations and economic agency. Geoforum, 140, 103699.
Gong, H. (in press). Futures should matter (more): toward a forward-looking perspective in economic geography. Progress in Human Geography.
Gibson-Graham, J. K. (1997). The end of capitalism (as we knew it): A feminist critique of political economy. Capital & Class, 21(2), 186-188.
Grillitsch, M., & Sotarauta, M. (2020). Trinity of change agency, regional development paths and opportunity spaces. Progress in human geography, 44(4), 704-723.
Harrison, J. (2022). Geography and public policy: taking responsibility in research and teaching. Space and Polity, 26(2), 88-93.
Martin, R. (2021). Rebuilding the economy from the Covid crisis: time to rethink regional studies?. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 8(1), 143-161.
Pohl, L. (2023). Geographies of the impossible. Dialogues in Human Geography, 20438206231177069.
Tödtling, F., Trippl, M., & Desch, V. (2022). New directions for RIS studies and policies in the face of grand societal challenges. European Planning Studies, 30(11), 2139-2156.
Tups, G., Sakala, E. N., & Dannenberg, P. (2023). Hope and path development in ‘left-behind’ places–a Southern perspective. Regional Studies, 1-18.
Yeung, H.W.C. (2023). Why is causal explanation critical in/to economic geography? EPA: Economy and Space.

Session Organisers:
Marcin Dąbrowski, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Verena Balz, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Michiel Stapper, University of Tilburg, The Netherlands
Artur Ochojski, University of Economics Katowice, Poland

In the face of the unfolding ‘poly-crisis’- combining climate crisis, energy crisis, deepening economic difficulties and growing inequalities between social groups and territories, and the crisis of trust in democracy – there is an urgency to rethink the approach to promoting sustainability transitions in cities and regions through place-based policies. The burden of the transition away from fossil fuel and energy-intensive industries is particularly heavy in regions that rely on mining and heavy industry. Many of those areas are peripheral, depopulating, or have already been ‘left behind’ and neglected by policymakers, which risks exacerbating regional disparities. Sustainability transition policies, thus, should pay special attention to those structurally weak regions. These policies also have to be more inclusive to listen to the voices of the communities that may be the most negatively affected by these shifts or that were largely absent in the debate on more sustainable regional futures. Place-based sustainability transition policies, whether they are promoted by the European Union (Just Transition Fund), national, regional, or local governments, should leave no one behind to avoid a major backlash against the urgent measures needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change the burdens of which are unevenly distributed across space and social groups.

Against this background, we propose a special session to explore the challenges of just sustainability transitions in regions and cities. The session is organised under the banner of two Horizon Europe research projects exploring to topic of participation in place-based just sustainability transitions – DUST (https://www.dustproject.eu/) and BOLSTER (https://bolster-horizon.eu/). We invite contributions from among the researchers working on those projects and other researchers investigating place-based sustainability transition policies and citizen participation therein. In particular, we welcome paper proposals based on new and original empirical material that explore the following questions from a diversity of methodological and conceptual perspectives:

– Citizen participation tools and methods for involving the least engaged and/or vulnerable communities in just sustainability transition policies in cities and regions;
– Regional and local narratives, storytelling and citizen perceptions of regional and urban sustainability transitions;
– Operationalisation of digital and/or design-based tools for governing sustainability transitions;
– Develop the stakeholders’ capabilities and ‘futures literacy’ in the context of planning sustainable regional and urban futures;
– Making citizen participation work in multi-level sustainability transition policies;
– Operationalisation of the concept of active subsidiarity in the context of the EU Just Transition Fund and the European Green Deal;
– Cross-fertilisation and synergies between EU Cohesion Policy, just sustainability transition policies, and spatial planning;
– Spatial justice, territorial cohesion, and ‘geographies of discontent’ in the context of regional and urban sustainability transitions;
– New conceptual lens to explore just sustainability transitions in cities and regions.

Session Organisers:
Hilda Rømer Christensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Lena Levin, VTI, Sweden

Applying gender and diversity, spelled out in variables such as age, class, ethnicity, and disability, to the field of the green transition this workshop session will take a fresh look at how we are moving towards green and gender equal regions in the world.

The topic of this session feeds into the efforts of connecting the overall global aims of green transition with gender and diversity-. This has been expressed in recent strategies such as “ Towards a green and gender equal Europe” by the EU as well as in the UN 2030 goals and links to the vision of a green and fair tomorrow.
In the context of global challenges of climate change, insecurity and uneven power relations, the work for increasing social sustainability is the most urgent (following e.g. United Nations sustainable goals No 5 Gender Equality, 10 Reduced Inequalities, and 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities).

Many local authorities and organisations have ambitious policy goals and is working hard to create an inclusive, safe environment for all. This session will emphasize the role of municipalities, local businesses, NGOs, civic initiatives, etcetera, and the results of their work for inclusiveness, gender equality and diversity. We welcome presentations from recent or ongoing initiatives and projects addressing Green transitions for all, including the notions of Leaving no one behind (LNOB) and Intersectional perspectives in theory and practice

Examples of themes for papers in this session include, but are not limited to:
• Municipalities (growing) interest in social sustainability and climate policy.
• Gender and diversity mainstreaming in green mobility and urban planning
• Power issues in greening public space and urban developments.
• Citizen participation in sustainable urban and rural development
• Degrowth and masculinity
• Paradoxes and marginalizations in the green transition.
• Digital methods and modes of mobilitzation.
• Gender responsive innnovations in the green transition .

Session Organisers:
Danny MacKinnon, Newcastle University, UK
Sanne Velthuis, Newcastle University, UK
Thilo Lang, Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde, Germany

In the past few years, ‘left behind places’ and ‘places that do not matter’ have become prominent topics in economic geography and policy debates, addressing issues linked to rising spatial inequalities. ‘Left behind places’ are commonly portrayed as hotbeds of discontent, taking their revenge against established actors and norms by voting for antisystem parties and movements. Yet emerging research concludes that such regions may be characterised by a range of political feelings and reactions. At the same time, dominant policy narratives suggest that ‘lagging’ regions must ‘catch-up’ by closing the productivity gap with more prosperous regions and unleashing their own economic potential. This may remain a wishful thinking under conditions of prolonged economic decline, depopulation, poor access to infrastructure and services, limited transport connectivity, competitiveness-based policy frameworks and poor institutional capacity. While economic development policies have to be ‘place-based’, the meaning and content of that imperative remains poorly specified. This session focuses on the development of ‘left behind places’, their predicaments, conditions, development prospects and policy frameworks.

We welcome contributions around the following themes:
• Characteristics, trajectories and futures of ‘left behind places’
• Feelings and material conditions of ‘left-behindness’
• Local impacts of austerity and changing forms of service provision
• The identities, livelihood strategies and aspirations of local residents
• Patterns of residential mobility and immobility from, to and within ‘left behind places’
• Alternative development approaches, including foundational economy, inclusive economies, community-wealth building, wellbeing, and degrowth strategies.
• Value and limitations of endogenous, place-based models of development
• Future prospects for ‘left behind places’ (under green transition, new technologies like AI, etc.)

Session Organisers:
Judit Kalman, Corvinus University Budapest and Center for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungary
Anna Uster, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Israel
Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

Collaborative governance has emerged as a response to government policy implementation failures and the challenges posed by costly and politicized regulations. It offers an alternative to traditional managerial approaches by fostering communication and cooperation among government entities, communities, and the private sector across various fields, from urban planning, environmental management, education and welfare issues to inclusion policy. This shift in focus within public administration acknowledges that more can be achieved through collaboration, breaking away from the rigid bureaucratic structures of the past. In collaborative governance, diverse sectors, autonomous organizations collaborate via both informal and formal relationships to achieve collective goals, that surpass what any single sector could achieve independently. These networks are seen as a solution to addressing the complex and challenging issues prevalent in-service delivery at both local and regional levels, often characterized as “wicked problems.”

Through collaboration with diverse political actors, including citizens, third sector, and private organizations, public bodies can harness valuable resources, enhance community connections, and bolster their capacity to address risks and diverse challenges (Ansell-Gash, 2008, Emerson et al. 2012). This collaborative approach not only advances effective risk management but also fosters enhanced community resilience within the local and regional spheres (Brix et al., 2020). Alongside the advantages there are challenges and complexities as well, highlighting the need for continuous efforts to address diverse interests, cultural differences, power dynamics, and the balancing act between coordination and autonomy. The challenges are embedded in different self-governance systems which characterize the diversity of institutional frameworks in European countries and beyond, such as:

• Diverse interests and opinions, tensions and misunderstandings within the network actors.
• Dynamic nature of networks leading to managerial dilemmas and a reduced degree of control for lead actors.
• Balancing the need for monitoring and coordinating public policy implementation while allowing autonomy to network actors in service delivery.
• Risk of coordination failure and potential defection by partners within the network can jeopardize collaborative efforts.
• Cultural friction and coordination fatigue
• Power imbalances potentially harming the public interest and leading to corruption.
• Accountability and cost-effectiveness issues potentially impacting the quality of public services.

This session invites papers that reflect on the above issues, the pros and cons, the interconnectedness between various institutional features and the success/failure of collaborative governance, the modes of collaborative governance and service delivery at the multi-level scale (municipal, regional, central governmental levels). Papers could include theoretical and/or empirical analysis of diverse policy issues from all over the world, e.g. urban development, territorial planning and economic development policy, education and welfare policy, migration policy that address the challenges of collaborative governance both at regional and local level. We invite papers from different disciplines, such as human geography, economics, public administration and management, political sciences, sociology.

Session Organisers:
Cristina Capineri, Universita’ Di Siena, Italy
Venere Stefania Sanna, Universita’ Di Siena, Italy
Steven Arthur Loiselle, Universita’ Di Siena, Italy

Over the past decades, the field of Citizen Science has notably burgeoned: EU-funded projects, national, regional and local initiatives and interdisciplinary scientific networks have contributed to such growth. Indeed, citizen science and regional planning are interconnected in several ways. Citizen science involves the collaboration between scientists and the general public to gather data, conduct research, contribute to scientific knowledge and last but not least to address issues that focus on the development and organization of land use, infrastructure, and resources within a specific geographic region.

The session aims to explore the role and potentialities of citizen science in the field of regional planning by addressing the following aspects.

• Community Engagement: involving citizens in scientific projects fosters a sense of community engagement. Regional planners can leverage this engagement to gather public opinions and concerns about local development projects. This input can be crucial in shaping regional plans that align with community values.
• Data Collection and Analysis: citizen science projects can provide valuable data for regional planners. This data can inform regional planning decisions related to environmental conservation, land use, and resource management.
• Policy Development: data collected through citizen science can contribute to evidence-based policy development. Regional planners can use this information to advocate for policies that align with environmental sustainability, community well-being, and overall regional development goals.
• Crowdsourced Monitoring: citizen scientists can contribute to monitoring various environmental factors, biodiversity, air and water quality, and more. This real-time data can provide policymakers with up-to-date information on the state of the environment, helping them respond promptly to emerging issues.
• Technology and Innovation: citizen science often involves the use of technology and innovation for data collection (sensors, LBS, etc.). Regional planners can leverage technological advancements from citizen science projects to improve their own planning processes, including the use of geospatial data, remote sensing, and other tools.
• Collaboration and Partnerships: collaborative efforts between citizen science groups, local communities, and regional planning authorities can enhance the overall effectiveness of projects. By fostering partnerships, both fields can benefit from shared resources, expertise, and a broader understanding of regional issues.
• Local Knowledge and Expertise: citizens often have unique knowledge about their local environments. By incorporating local knowledge into citizen science projects, policymakers can tap into this valuable expertise to gain a more comprehensive understanding of regional issues and potential solutions.
• Public Awareness and Advocacy: citizen science projects raise awareness about specific issues, fostering a sense of environmental and civic responsibility. This increased awareness can lead to public support for evidence-based policies, making it more likely that policymakers can implement effective solutions even with reference to SDGs.
• Policy Evaluation: citizen science data can be used not only to inform new policies but also to evaluate the effectiveness of existing ones. Continuous monitoring through citizen science initiatives provides ongoing feedback on policy outcomes, allowing for adjustments and improvements as needed.
• Inclusivity and Diversity: citizen science promotes inclusivity by involving people from diverse backgrounds and communities. This inclusivity ensures that the data collected reflects a broad range of perspectives, contributing to more equitable and inclusive policy development.

In summary, citizen science enhances the evidence base for policymaking by providing high-quality data, engaging communities, promoting inclusivity, and fostering collaboration. Policymakers can leverage the insights gained from citizen science initiatives to make informed decisions that better address the needs of both the environment and the communities they serve. Citizen science and regional planning can complement each other by combining scientific data, community engagement, and environmental awareness to create more informed and sustainable regional development plans.

References:
Haklay M. (2015) Citizen Science and Policy: A European Perspective. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Schade, S. et al. (2021) Citizen Science and Policy. In: Vohland, K., et al. The Science of Citizen Science. Springer, Cham.
Skarlatidou, A., & Haklay, M. (2020). Geographic citizen science design: no one left behind. UCL Press.
Vohland, K., Land-Zandstra, A., Ceccaroni, L., Lemmens, R., Perelló, J., Ponti, M., Wagenknecht, K. (2021). The science of citizen science. Springer Nature.

Session Organisers:
Judit Timár, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies Institute for Regional Studies, Hungary
Szabolcs Fabula, Department of Economic and Social Geography, University of Szeged, Hungary

One of the central questions of regional studies in the past few decades is the nature, spatial characteristics, and effects of various crises. However, this open session aims to revisit theories and practices related to uneven spatial development. Uneven development can be considered as a means of managing capitalism’s recurring crises, but also one of the most stable/general problems of capitalist regional and urban processes, and thus has a lasting impact for everyday life. Over the decades, many concepts have been developed that deal either with uneven development or with the everyday; however, we argue that combining the two still constitutes a research gap. This session is an invitation to discuss the experiences gained from applying these different theoretical approaches.

We therefore expect presentations that are based on theoretical and/or empirical, quantitative and/or qualitative research that can contribute to a debate on questions as follows:

How does the combination of uneven development and the concepts of the individual- and group-specific space-experience and everyday life contribute theoretically and empirically to geographical knowledge? More specifically, how do the structural conditions of uneven development affect space-attached individual and group-perceptions and practices?
And vice versa, what impact can the decisions that shape daily practices have on uneven geographical development?

We especially encourage research contributions examining the changing relation and reaction of people marginalised in several ways – living in places/regions that are currently in the position of underdevelopment/disinvestment – to the spatial disadvantage they experience.

Session Organisers:
Suyash Jolly, Nordland Research Institute, Norway
Trond Nilsen, Innlandet Business School, Norway

Recent debates within the sustainability transitions and the green industry path development within the Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) literature have highlighted the emergence of green extractivism also have consequences in terms of creating wider socio-economic inequality (Skjølsvold & Coenen, 2021; Rodríguez-Pose & Bartalucci, 2023) ), creating an excessively negative impact on natural resources such as land, natural flora and fauna, wildlife habitats and harmful effects on the livelihoods of the local and indigenous communities (Andreucci et al., 2023). Furthermore, the recent interest in the extraction of sustainable metals and minerals (Sovacool et al., 2020) and Rare Earth Elements (REE) (Golroudbary et al., 2022) for supporting the green transition activities in the fragile areas in the Global North and the Global South have created considerable concerns, conflicts, and contestations (Ciplet & Harrison, 2019). There are also concerns over large RE megaprojects in remote and peripheral geographical regions with fragile natural ecosystems and increasing mistrust between the government and the local communities over the public consultation and the necessary environmental impact assessment (Johnstone & Buhmann, 2023), as well as the controversies related to the development of new green industries (e.g., onshore wind energy, new data centers, battery production, steel fabrication) without adequately respecting indigenous rights and interests (Nilsen & Njøs, 2022; Garbis et al., 2023). Given these insights, there is also a need for further exploring the research agenda on the “ Geography of sustainability transitions “ ( Hansen & Coenen, 2015) concerning how place specificity and multi-scalar processes ( Zachrisson & Beland Lindahl, 2023) influence inclusive green transition processes and can also contribute towards increasing regional disparities and contribute to discontent and populism (Rodríguez-Pose & Bartalucci, 2023).

This session seeks contributions comparing and contrasting green and inclusive transitions in the context of geographically remote and peripheral places in the Global and Circumpolar North and the Global South. The session explores new avenues to ensure a more equitable distribution of the benefits of emerging green transition. The session invites contributions based on diverse qualitative as well as quantitative research methodologies on the following themes. The presentations in this special session may address the following themes (but are not limited) to them

1. Single or comparative case studies describing how the negative impacts of green transitions play out in different geographical and institutional settings
2. Exploring how multi-scalar institutional arrangements and state-level institutions and governance mechanisms at different spatial scales (local to global) create new opportunities as well as constraints for the citizens, indigenous communities i peripheral regions to challenge the state against the negative impacts of green transition on the nature and local livelihoods
3. Explaining how irresponsible green extractive activities such as the sustained expansion of mining activities or development of new RE (renewable energy) mega-projects can disproportionately impact rural and indigenous communities in peripheral and remote regions and make them further “ left behind “ as well as contribute to more social unrest and populism
4. The mistakes and policy implementation failures to be avoided while including marginalized communities in the green transition process in the future
5. Envisioning alternative models of inclusive green transitions in geographically remote and peripheral places by also considering future demographic changes such as increasing ageing population and immigration, increasing poverty, future climate change disasters, rapid AI (Artificial Intelligence)-related developments, global trade disputes, and black swan events (e.g., future global pandemics, future wars)

References
Andreucci, D., García López, G., Radhuber, I. M., Conde, M., Voskoboynik, D. M., Farrugia, J. D., & Zografos, C. (2023). The coloniality of green: Unearthing decarbonisation by dispossession through the case of nickel. Political Geography, 107, 102997
Ciplet, D., & Harrison, J. L. (2019). Transition tensions: mapping conflicts in movements for a just and sustainable transition. Environmental Politics, 29(3), 435–456
Garbis, Z., McCarthy, E., Orttung, R. W., Poelzer, G., Shaiman, M., & Tafrate, J. (2023). Governing the green economy in the Arctic. Climatic Change, 176(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03506-3
Golroudbary, S. R., Makarava, I., Kraslawski, A., & Repo, E. (2022). Global environmental cost of using rare earth elements in green energy technologies. Science of The Total Environment, 832, 155022
Hansen, T., & Coenen, L. (2015). The geography of sustainability transitions: Review, synthesis and reflections on an emergent research field. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17, 92–109
Johnstone, R. L., & Buhmann, K. (2023). Megaprojects on ice: lessons from the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project for a Just Transition. The Polar Journal, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/2154896x.2023.2269691
Nilsen, T., & Njøs, R. (2022). Emergence of new industries in peripheral regions: the role of narratives in delegitimation of onshore wind in the Arctic Finnmark region. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 9(1), 603–617
Rodríguez-Pose, A., & Bartalucci, F. (2023). The green transition and its potential territorial discontents. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. Oxford University Press (OUP). https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad039
Skjølsvold, T. M., & Coenen, L. (2021). Are rapid and inclusive energy and climate transitions oxymorons? Towards principles of responsible acceleration. Energy Research & Social Science, 79, 102164
Sovacool, B. K., Ali, S. H., Bazilian, M., Radley, B., Nemery, B., Okatz, J., & Mulvaney, D. (2020). Sustainable minerals and metals for a low-carbon future. Science, 367(6473), 30–33.
Zachrisson, A., & Beland Lindahl, K. (2023). Extractive governance and mining conflicts: Challenging scalar hierarchies through ‘opening up’ to local sustainability pathways. Political Geography, 105, 102927

Session Organisers:
Funke Michaels, Newcastle University, UK
Suziette Agazie, Newcastle University, UK

Growing the Role of International Partnerships towards Innovation Development in Sub Saharan Africa: Opportunities to Leverage Artificial Intelligence.
As new innovation hubs and tech cities spring up across Sub-Saharan Africa, the overall effects on the local and regional economies can be seen in the growth of Foreign Direct Investment, and in the quality of innovation output. This session seeks to emphasize the need to better communicate the positive economic effects of these international partnerships through targeted media, public engagement and policy participation.
The session will feature presentations and panel discussions by academics, innovation investors, foundations, and tech entrepreneurs working in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Mauritius, and South Africa. Building on the session outcomes, discussion papers will be put together in a series which we hope to include the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia in the future.
Through this session, we aim to prompt a public debate on how to involve the people of these communities more pro-actively; and what roles the media, internet connectivity, and Artificial Intelligence experts should play in this regard. With the consequent papers we are looking to reshape the narrative, stimulate public policy participation, and generate support for international partnerships beneficial to innovators working with Artificial Intelligence in Sub Saharan Africa.

SESSION SEGMENTS

The session is planned as 4 segments discussing:

1) Kenya’s Silicon Savannah
Prof. George Nyambega (Aga Khan University) Effects on Media and Populace
Kerry-Ann Makatiani (ShareHub Kenya)
Kunle Awosika (Microsoft Africa)
Andrea Censoni (BeEntrepreneurs/ENI Italy)

2) Ghana’s Innovation Network
Dr. Anjali Sastry (MIT Sloan) Effects on Systems and Healthcare Delivery
Pierre Liautaud (Nanocredit, Ghana)
Megan McCormick (OZE fintech, Ghana)

3) Nigeria’s Innovation Sub-Economy
Prof. Wale Ogunkola (University of Ibadan) Effects on Policy and Financial Profiles
Dr. Segun Aina (Africa Fintech Network, Africa)
Richard Ogunmodede (Monieworx, Nigeria)

4) Finding Innovation-Friendly Policies
Alesandra Soresina (La Carnita /Wildlife, Tanzania) Effects on Agri-Innovation
Jean Chawapiwa (MSDUK, UK)
Terry Antoinette (DTOS, Mauritius)

Session Organisers:
Tom Kemeny, University of Toronto, Canada
Davide Luca, University of Cambridge, UK
Mark Fransham, University of Oxford, UK
Neil Lee, London School of Economics, UK

Many countries have become highly geographically polarised today, with superstar cities pulling away from the rest of national urban systems across a range of important outcomes, like job quality, pay, employment, health, and social mobility. This growing spatial inequality has become a central concern to policymakers seeking to maximise human potential and limit the pernicious economic, social and political effects of place-based decline and deprivation. Academic interest has also resurged, with spatial inequality becoming a vibrant area of study for economic geographers and urban economists, who have used new tools and data to expand our understanding of its causes of consequences.

We are interested in perspectives on spatial inequality drawn from both the global north and global south. Submissions welcome on topics including (but not limited to):

Tracing the geography of inequality
• Description and comparison of spatial inequality
• Advances in measurement and methodology
• Urban and rural inequalities

Causes of spatial inequality
• Technology
• Migration
• Industrial location
• Demographics
• Institutions and policies
• Land use and housing

Consequences of spatial inequality
• Attitudes and political polarization
• Health
• Intergenerational social mobility
• Career ladders
• Race-based exclusion

Policy responses to spatial inequality
• Inclusive growth
• Cohesion and levelling up
• Post-COVID recovery
• Industrial policy and Build Back Better

Session Organisers:
Damien Nouvel, ESPI Real Estate Business School, France
Chiara Tagliaro, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Olayiwola Oladiran, University of Sheffield, UK

Context:
In an era marked by profound global challenges – from climate change and geopolitical instability to technological transformation – the role of regions and regional studies has never been more critical. The RSA Annual Conference 2024 provides a platform to explore how regional studies, policies, and collaborations can address these multifaceted challenges. Under this overarching theme, our special session will delve into the world of PropTech (Property Technology) and its significance in regional collaboration and adaptation to global changes.

Session Focus:
This session aims to explore how PropTech is reshaping the landscape of real estate and urban development in the face of global challenges. We will examine how innovative technologies in real estate can contribute to sustainable development, enhance regional collaboration, and offer solutions to the pressing issues of our times. The session will highlight the following areas:

– The role of PropTech in fostering sustainable and resilient urban development.
– How PropTech solutions align with regional policies and planning amidst global challenges.
– Case studies of PropTech facilitating regional collaboration and transformation.
– The impact of technological advancements in real estate on local communities and economies.

Call for Contributions:
We invite academicians, researchers, industry experts, policymakers, and practitioners to contribute their insights, research, and case studies. Your contribution should ideally focus on the intersection of PropTech, regional studies, and global challenges, offering both theoretical and practical perspectives.

Session Organisers:
Etienne Nel, University of Otago, New Zealand
Ash Alam, University of Melbourne, Australia
Melissa Kelly, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada

There has been a growing recognition that international migration is not just an urban phenomenon, but also one that impacts small and mid-sized cities and even rural areas. Many of these impacts are positive. Migrants – whether arriving as refugees, temporary workers, or permanent residents- may be seen as contributing to local revitalization, especially when smaller cities and towns are experiencing population ageing and out-migration to larger urban centres. However, many small and mid-sized cities and towns often find it challenging to meet the settlement, housing and employment needs of migrants and of their family members in particular. Established populations may also struggle to adapt to increasing levels of cultural and linguistic diversity. These challenges require innovative solutions. Over and above these issues are the very real settlement obstacles which migrants face.

Compared to many European countries, ‘traditional’ immigrant-receiving countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand are typically thought of as having more positive attitudes towards migrants and more pro-active immigration and settlement policies. Successfully welcoming and settling migrants in small and mid-sized cities depends not only on federal/national policies, but also on local practices and initiatives. In particular, the cooperation of stakeholders including employers, service providers, community-groups and local governments is essential for small urban centres wishing to seize the benefits and overcome the challenges resulting from migration. Understanding migrant needs and challenges is critical in this regard.

This panel will examine international experience in order to explore the degree to which these experiences can facilitate cross-national comparisons and the sharing of best practices.

Session Organisers:
Emma Björner, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Annelie Sjölander-Lindqvist, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Wilhelm Skoglund, Mid Sweden University, Sweden
Daniel Laven, Mid Sweden University, Sweden

Over the past decades, local food systems (LFS) have been widely promoted as a lever for transformation towards more inclusive, resilient and sustainable food systems. Notably, the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit addressed how LFS are vital to advance the vision of the 2030 Agenda by transforming how food is produced, processed and consumed.

This Special Session recognizes the potential of local food and gastronomy to reclaim local sense of place while encouraging the practice of entrepreneurship. The Session will through critical reflection discuss how actions can impede to create sustainable rural entrepreneurship, alongside exploring what is important to enable solutions to the challenges confronting the establishment of LFS and development in rural regions.

We particularly welcome contributions that address:

• Enhancing entrepreneurship in rural areas through local food systems
• Digital solutions supporting and promoting locally produced food
• Procurement practices and locally produced food: barriers and opportunities
• Creating sense of place through gastronomy and local food
• The role of policies, laws, institutions and funding in relation to LFS
• Transformative actions towards a sustainable food system of the future

Session Organisers:
Steve Millington, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Nikos Ntounis, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Gareth Roberts, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Chloe Steadman, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

The aim of this session is to share contemporary research about place management and leadership. Despite the place based turn in regional and local governance, there remains concern about how well place management and leadership is understood in policy and practice. Although the growing commitment to deliver better place based outcomes is welcomed, attempts to reinvent existing and traditional institutions of local governance as place-facing should be treated with suspicion. Too often strategies for local and regional revitalisation remain determined by centralised or regional bodies, in systems where a top-down approach has systematically failed to address spatial economies, social and environmental imbalances, and where the ecosystem to support appropriate place-based outcomes and delivery remains poorly developed and hampered by a lack of capacity and knowledge to support effective collaborative placemaking. However, good practice and new research is beginning to emerge which might help develop understanding of what makes for good and viable place-based development. Consequently, this session calls for papers which analyses all facets of place management and leadership, including but not limited to:

Repositioning places
– post-retail high street and town centres
– critical analysis of visioning
– creating liveable and loveable places
– establishing a sense of place
– the tools, data and methods of enquiry underpinning research into place-based development policy and practice

Reinventing places
– place resilience and adaptability; including applications of circular economy and sustainable placemaking
– inclusive placemaking and activation
– heritage and culture in placemaking
– events, festivals, and markets
– role of social infrastructure in placemaking

Rebranding places
– critical analysis of place marketing and branding
– participatory place branding
– destination marketing

Restructuring places
– experiments and innovations to empower local communities and businesses, partnership development, and local ‘action’
– devolution
– reconciling the place agenda within planning and development
– innovations in place based governance and policy instruments, governance, and standards

Session Organisers:
Leanne Townsend, James Hutton Institute, UK
Gary Bosworth, Northumbria University, UK
Christina Rundel, Albstadt-Sigmaringen University, Germany
Jason Whalley, Northumbria University, UK

Digitalisation in rural areas is both a mature, and a cutting-edge area of research. Recent decades have seen rapid technological advancements resulting in increased embeddedness of digital technologies in our daily lives. This process of digitalisation has transformed our ways of being in radical ways, often for the better but in some cases causing significant divides and inequalities (Rijswijk et al. 2021). In this session, we invite papers that explore how digitalisation is driving socio-economic and cultural change in rural areas as well those that continue to push for greater digital equality, recognising that the “digital divide” has yet to be resolved.

The premise of the Special Session is that the next wave of rural digital developments must not merely reproduce existing rural inequalities but instead promote pathways to rural opportunities. This requires us to rethink how we approach the role of digitalisation in everyday rural life and encourages a more place-based approach to research and policymaking. For example, rather than studying technological infrastructure in isolation, which often assumes similar capabilities to deploy digital tools for economic gain between regions, studies that explore diverse spaces of socio-technological interaction and diverse digital rural cultures are particularly welcome.

Much of the literature on rural digitalisation in the last decade has focused on its role in the revitalisation and resilience of rural places (Morris et al. 2022), through supporting rural entrepreneurship (Fahmi and Savira 2021), promoting the development of social capital amongst rural communities (Noble et al. 2023) and supporting social innovation (Fahmi and Arifianto 2022). Despite this narrative, digital divides persist, both relating to infrastructure and social factors impacting on digital skills and access to technologies. This inhibits the full potential of digitalisation in rural places (Cowie et al. 2020; Clercq et al. 2020).

A place-based approach must recognise the importance of wider networks, both real and virtual. Until now, rural places have accepted the spread of digital technologies, and their impacts, as an inevitable result of urban-centred innovations. Rethinking the balance of power between urban and rural networks, at a time when urban-rural interdependencies and flows are in a state of flux, can yield new insights and opportunities.  For example, the new sites of rural connectivity, connecting within and beyond rural areas are providing interesting opportunities for research to interrogate the future implications of hyperconnected and not-so-connected rural development trajectories (Bosworth et al., 2023).  Technological advancements, such as AI and robotics in agriculture (Townsend and Noble, 2022), raise questions about the implications of heightened competition for larger firms and their environments but also raise concerns for those on the margins of the digital economy and society who may feel increasingly powerless to adapt to the pace of change.

This session invites papers reflecting on the above themes, and especially encourages contributions which consider rural digitalisation through a regional or place-based lens. The session provides a platform for research concerned with rural digitalisation and aims to strengthen networks of interest in this area.

Some suggested themes within the Session include:

• Social, economic or cultural impacts of digitalisation in rural areas
• Experiences of hyperconnected and peripheral rural places in the digital economy
• The Digital Divide: Old problems and new causes
• Digitalisation & Place-based policy
• Rural Spaces of Digitalisation
• Opportunities for rural entrepreneurship and innovation

Session Organisers:
Jenny Kanellopoulou, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Aggelos Panayiotopoulos, Liverpool John Moores, UK
Nikos Ntounis, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

The aim of this open session is to broaden the discussion on the role and the impact of alternative, popular and counter-cultures on the development of regions and places. The panel seeks to explore cultures and groups often overseen or neglected in the broader discussion of regional development and while doing so, also address issues of belonging and spatial inequality on sub-national level.

The panel welcomes contributions on the topic of – for instance – alternative festivals and events (including music, tattoo or food festivals and pride events), dark and alternative types of tourism, urban squats and resistance to gentrification, protests and activism in the form of cultural events, and other forms of cultural expression and participation that are characterised as popular/ alternative/ fringe or provocative.

The panel is further open to innovative methodological and epistemological contributions pertaining to the above issues (including – for instance – queer and feminist approaches), aiming to revisit the concepts of regional culture and heritage, whilst considering how alternative cultures can affect genius loci and place identity

Session Organisers:
Karel Van den Berghe, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Marcin Dabrowski, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Emil Evenhuis, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Netherlands

In recent times, the circular economy (CE) has emerged as a beacon of sustainability and innovation, promoting an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. It stands as a response to the increasing concerns about resource depletion, environmental degradation, and economic sustainability. However, as with any transformative concept, it is imperative to approach the CE with a critical perspective. Illustrative of this need is that by now following the vast amount of definitions (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Kirchherr et al., 2017; Korhonen, Honkasalo, et al., 2018; Reike et al., 2018; Schröder et al., 2020), it is easier to say what the CE is not than to say what it is (Kovacic et al., 2020).

This session intends to delve into the complexities and nuances of the CE, in space and time, to challenge the ‘false’ consensus that often prevents discussion, to unearth the less discussed aspects of this paradigm. The session aims to continue the increasingly lively critical debate on the (non-)use of the CE concept, going beyond the surface-level benefits and exploring the potential challenges, limitations, and unintended consequences that accompany the concept.

We invite authors to present their work from various angles, whether it be:
– theoretical frameworks that question the foundational principles of the CE,
– methodological innovations that offer new ways to analyze and implement circular systems (of systems), or
– empirical research shedding light on real-world applications and their outcomes.
– In particular, it invites authors that showcase the important trade-offs that become exposed in the CE, and the need for (difficult) choices that need to be made.

As such, we can better understand the true potential of the concept of the CE, by explicitly stressing its limitations.

Session Organisers:
Louise Kempton, Newcastle University, UK
Michael Glass, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Diana Morales, Umea University, Sweden
David Marlow, Third Life Economics, UK

Defining Inclusive Innovation has been an increasing academic concern for the last decade (Lee, 2023). In general, inclusive innovation is conceptualised over the need to make innovation more equitable, definitions vary in complexity and, despite the uptake in academic interest, it remains a fuzzy concept and a policy goal challenged by technological solutionism and uneven local capabilities (Lee, 2019, 2023). Meanwhile, evidence shows that the benefits of RD&I are not evenly shared across sectors (Unger et al., 2019), people (Planes-Satorra & Paunov, 2017) or places (Evenhuis et al., 2021), while local and regional governments continue to increase their responsibilities to achieve inclusive growth, boost productivity, address climate change and the green transition, and tackle inequality (MacKinnon et al., 2021).

It is well evidenced that investments in innovation often favour high-skilled professionals, research-intensive universities, well-financed businesses, and a select group of ambitious entrepreneurs. Even when public policy explicitly targets ‘left behind places’, these investments can still increase inequalities, polarisation and create enclaves detached from the communities that host them. This policy area is of major interest and importance, but fraught with tensions and trade-offs which need to be debated in an open and evidence-informed manner.

In this session we wish to explore how Inclusive Innovation can be defined and understood to better contribute to addressing societal and economic challenges facing cities, regions, and less-advantaged places and communities across the Global North and South by presenting the findings from fieldwork in four cities using innovation as strategy to recover from economic, social or political shock.  Following these short presentations we will have a dialogue with the audience.

In particular we are seeking feedback on the findings so far and ideas for future case studies. We are looking for additional case studies in places using innovation to recover from natural disasters and to address economic challenges in rural areas and island economies.  We very much welcome attendance by academics and policy-makers who might be interested in partnering with us on this programme of work going forwards.

LIST OF SPEAKERS

1. David Marlow – Introduction to the Improving Innovation Inclusions Outcomes (i³o) project
2. Louise Kempton – Innovation in post-industrial economies, the case of Newcastle
3. Michael Glass – Innovation in post-industrial economies, the case of Pittsburgh
4. Diana Morales – Innovation post-conflict, the case of Medellin
5. Luke Green – Innovation post-conflict, the case of Belfast
6. David Marlow – Findings and insights for policy design

 References

Evenhuis, E., Lee, N., Martin, R., & Tyler, P. (2021). Rethinking the political economy of place: Challenges of productivity and inclusion. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 14(1), 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaa043
Lee, N. (2019). Inclusive growth in cities: A sympathetic critique. Regional Studies, 53(3), 424–434. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.%0A2018.1476753
Lee, N. (2023). Inclusive innovation in cities: from buzzword to policy. Regional Studies, 0(0), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2023.2168637
MacKinnon, D., Kempton, L., O’Brien, P., Ormerod, E., Pike, A., & Tomaney, J. (2021). Reframing urban and regional ‘development’ for ‘left behind’ places. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsab034
Planes-Satorra, S., & Paunov, C. (2017). Inclusive innovation policies: Lessons from international case studies. https://doi.org/10.1787/a09a3a5d-en
Unger, R. M., Stanley, I., Gabriel, M., & Mulgan, G. (2019). Imagination unleashed. Democratising the knowledge economy.

Session Organisers:
Johan Miörner, Lund University, Sweden
Christian Binz, Eawag, Switzerland

Theorizing by scholars in regional studies and economic geography has been instrumental for developing sophisticated perspectives on the geography of sustainability transitions (Hansen and Coenen, 2015; Coenen et al., 2012). However, while the literature provides ample evidence on the conditions under which transformative experiments in single cities or regions come about, we still lack a thorough understanding of how the innovations they generate diffuse across space, places and scales (Binz et al., 2020; Loorbach et al., 2020; Sengers and Raven, 2015). This is a major research gap, as the diffusion of novel solutions developed in urban/regional experiments differ from ‘conventional’ diffusion processes described in innovation studies and economic geography.

Transformative innovations challenge the status quo in deeply locked-in sector such as energy, waste, water and transport. They combine technological-, organizational-, social-, policy- and demand-side innovations in novel socio-technical configurations ‘that work’ in addressing wicked sustainability problems (Fuenfschilling and Truffer, 2016; Kuzemko et al., 2017; Weber and Rohracher, 2012). These solutions are often adapted to local context conditions and their core technologies, governance arrangements or business models cannot easily be transferred between contexts without substantial place-adaptation and translation. Studying the spatial diffusion of transformative innovations thus promises insights that expand beyond the canonical perspectives in economic geography, as well as innovation- and regional studies, on innovation diffusion (see Hägerstrand, 1968; Norton and Rees, 1979; Feldman, 1994), trans-local learning (Henderson, 1999; Malmberg and Maskell, 2006) or policy mobilities (Peck, 2011).

In this special session we invite conceptual and empirical contributions that advance new perspectives on the spatial diffusion of transformative innovations between cities, regions and countries. For example, papers in this session may consider:
• Diffusion trajectories and patterns for transformative innovations in different contexts and/or between different contexts.
• Aggregation or de-contextualization processes that strip place-based characteristics away from the more generic socio-technical ‘templates’ to be diffused.
• Translation and place-based adaptation mechanisms that kicks in every time a transformative innovation is copied or mimicked in a new city or region.
• Mechanisms and trajectories for ‘upscaling’ novel solutions that have emerged through placed-based experimentation.
• The mobility of institutional set-ups, policies, templates and models that specify transformative innovations and their implementation.
• The role of agency in the translation and place-based adaptation of transformative innovations in new contexts.
• Non-market channels for diffusing transformative innovations, such as professional epistemic communities, policy networks, consultants or NGOs.
• Local conditions and innovation system factors shaping the capacity to adopt and adapt transformative innovations developed in other places.
• Diffusion of transformative innovations between low-, medium- and high-income economies.

References
Binz, Christian, Coenen, Lars, Murphy, James T. and Truffer, Bernhard (2020) ‘Geographies of transition—From topical concerns to theoretical engagement: A comment on the transitions research agenda’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 34, pp. 1-3.
Coenen, Lars, Benneworth, Paul and Truffer, Bernhard (2012) ‘Toward a spatial perspective on sustainability transitions’, Research policy, 41(6), pp. 968-979.
Feldman, Maryann P (1994) The geography of innovation. Springer Science & Business Media.
Fuenfschilling, Lea and Truffer, Bernhard (2016) ‘The interplay of institutions, actors and technologies in socio-technical systems—An analysis of transformations in the Australian urban water sector’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 103, pp. 298-312.
Hansen, Teis and Coenen, Lars (2015) ‘The geography of sustainability transitions: Review, synthesis and reflections on an emergent research field’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17, pp. 92-109.
Henderson, J Vernon 1999. Marshall’s economies. National Bureau of Economic Research Cambridge, Mass., USA.
Hägerstrand, Torsten (1968) Innovation diffusion as a spatial process. Chicago: University of Chicago press.
Kuzemko, Caroline, Mitchell, Catherine, Lockwood, Matthew and Hoggett, Richard (2017) ‘Policies, politics and demand side innovations: The untold story of Germany’s energy transition’, Energy Research & Social Science, 28, pp. 58-67.
Loorbach, Derk, Wittmayer, Julia, Avelino, Flor, Von Wirth, Timo and Frantzeskaki, Niki (2020) ‘Transformative innovation and translocal diffusion’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 35, pp. 251-260.
Malmberg, A. and Maskell, P. (2006) ‘Localized learning revisited’, Growth and Change, 37(1), pp. 1-18.
Norton, Richard D and Rees, John (1979) ‘The product cycle and the spatial decentralization of American manufacturing’, Regional Studies, 41(S1), pp. S61-S71.
Peck, Jamie (2011) ‘Geographies of policy:From transfer-diffusion to mobility-mutation’, Progress in Human Geography, 35(6), pp. 773-797.
Sengers, Frans and Raven, Rob (2015) ‘Toward a spatial perspective on niche development: The case of Bus Rapid Transit’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17, pp. 166-182.
Weber, K Matthias and Rohracher, Harald (2012) ‘Legitimizing research, technology and innovation policies for transformative change: Combining insights from innovation systems and multi-level perspective in a comprehensive ‘failures’ framework’, Research Policy, 41(6), pp. 1037-1047.

Session Organisers:
David Bassens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Karen Lai, Durham University, UK
Dariusz Wójcik, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Research by the Bank for International Settlements (Auer et al., 2023, 3) defines decentralised finance as a “financial ecosystem built on technology that does not require a central organisation to operate and that has no safety net. It consists of protocols – implemented as ‘smart contracts’ – running on a network of computers to automatically manage financial transactions. Implemented on top of distributed ledger technology, it does not require banks or other traditional centralized intermediaries”. Whatever definition we use, the quintessentially geographical challenge of decentralised finance starts in the very name. What are the spaces of this decentralisation in theory and practice? How does decentralisation of finance work within and across geographical scales and contexts? Perhaps counterintuitively, to what extent is even decentralised finance prone to processes of geographical articulation? What structures and agencies affect its emergence and evolution? What are the actual and potential impacts of decentralisation of finance on economy, society, and the environment?

This open session calls for contributions to address these crucial questions, and is related to the call for papers for a special issue of Finance & Space journal on https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/decentralised-finance-another-end-geography/.

Session Organisers:
Bjorn Asheim, University of Stavanger, Norway
Jan Vang Brambini-Pedersen, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Session Details
Recent years have witnessed an increased focus on sustainability, SDGs and Grand challenges. This has paved the road for numerous conceptual and theoretical attempts across different schools in economic geography and neighboring fields to grasp the implications for existing concepts and theories. While it is beyond doubt that sustainability and similar challenges should not be yet another missed boat for economic geographers and likeminded there is nevertheless a need for paying more attention to how challenges like the abovementioned can be integrated into dominant frameworks without compromising the various theories’ boundary conditions – this is what we refer to as concept stretching (or concept mushrooming and empire-building). From the organizer’s perspective new attempts at incorporating sustainability into e.g. RIS, Evolutionary geography, Global value chains are prone to incorporate new concepts without clear linkages to the core of the theories they are embedded in.

This panel consisting of 4-6 invited speakers representing leading scholars in economic geography and neighboring fields will dissect ongoing attempts at incorporating sustainability and related challenges into economic geographical canon and aim at identifying a way ahead allowing for a critical, consistent yet crucial incorporation of said challenges.

Speakers:
– Ulvira Uyarra, University of Manchester, UK
– Silvia Rita Sedita, University of Padua, Italy
– Ron Boschma, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
– Markus Grillitsch, Lund University, Sweden