RSA MeRSA Grant Scheme
We are very pleased to announce the new MeRSA Grant holders for the 2022 round. Congratulations to Paula Margaretic Huertas and Simonetta Armondi. Read below to find out more about them and their projects.
I gained my Ph.D. from the University of Toulouse (2012), I work at Adolfo Ibañez University, Chile, as a researcher and assistant professor. My research is mainly on empirical applications in financial econometrics, spatial econometrics, and international economics. Previously, I worked at the San Andrés University in Argentina, the Central Bank of Chile, and Airbus France, among others.
“I am honored to be awarded one of the MeRSA grants. I am excited about the opportunity of developing my research on international migration and contributing to our understanding and ongoing policy discussions on migration and the socio-economic and environmental contexts driving this phenomenon. The award will allow me to connect with the active RSA community.”
International Migration, Climate Change and Network Effects: A Worldwide Study
The goal of this project is to investigate, at a macro level, the determinants of international migration among countries, focusing on the interlinkages among the socio-economic and political factors characterizing countries, the role of neighboring countries, and the influence of climate change. To do this, I propose a global analysis of more than 150 countries worldwide over a 30-year period.
Simonetta Armondi is an Associate Professor in Economic and Political Geography at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU). Her research interests focus on 1) productive territories and spatial justice, 2) Technical lands and city-region policies, 3) Political ecology. She is currently the scientific coordinator of the RIBA Research Project (funded by the DAStU): Operational Geographies in Northern Italy (2021-2023).
www.operationalgeographies.polimi.it) and co-director of the research: 2024 Annual Report “The Cities and Territories of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). Actors, processes, policies”, Urban@it, National Centre for Urban Policies Studies. Since 2017 she has been on the Journal of Urban Technology editorial board.
“I am deeply honoured that the Regional Studies Association will support this project. Receiving the Membership Research Grant Scheme is an excellent opportunity to strengthen my research and focus on a selected topic. Thanks to the grant, I hope to address a specific gap in understanding and conceptualising city-regional logistics.”
Logistics City-Regions in Transition. New Spatial Imaginary?
Over the last few years, the goods distribution system in European cities has suffered a strong fragmentation. City-regions are substituting cities in the global economic and political setting and their roles in the world economy related to logistics. Understanding the policy and governance dimension of logistics and freight distribution about land uses and circulation modes is crucial in exploring how logistics are discursively framed. The project – in the framework of a research on Operational Geographies (https://www.operationalgeographies.polimi.it/en/operational-geographies-spatial-strategies-dynamic-maps-of-regional-urbanization-a-basic-research-project/) analyses how contested and contradictory, such issues are.
Moved by these concerns, the project explores the regionalisation processes ongoing in two Southern European city-regions: Verona (Italy) and Zaragoza (Spain). It focuses mainly on the influence of the dynamics of logistics, addressing three main questions: 1) How does logistics produce new city-region geographies beyond node-network-style transportation studies? 2) How are logistics impacting city-regions development dynamics and their sustainability and green transition? 3) After the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how are the logistics regions planning their future and preparing to face unexpected crises? The research develops qualitative analyses concerning the spatial trajectories of those areas that have been interested in new trends in global supply chain and city-region freight distribution, trying to understand the new spatial imaginary mobilised by private logistics operators and public actors upon freight villages, logistics issues and ecological transition.
Membership (MeRSA) Research Grant Scheme