RSA MeRSA Grant Scheme
We are very pleased to announce the new MeRSA Grant holders for the 2023 round. Congratulations to Arnisson Andre Ortega and Eduardo Medeiros. Read below to find out more about them and their projects.
Arnisson Andre C. Ortega is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment in Syracuse University. He is a critical geographer focusing on (1) community-engaged work; (2) spatial politics of urban transformations; (3) transnational urbanism; and (4) critical demography. He is an affiliate faculty of the Community Geography program at Syracuse University.
“Thank you to the Regional Science Association for supporting this project. It is an honor to receive this grant. As an immigrant faculty here in the United States, working on refugee and immigration issues as they pertain to urban transformation is at the core of my scholarship. I expect this study to blossom into future community-engaged projects that will advocate for refugee concerns.”
Geographies of Refugee Resettlement and Post-industrial Urban Renewal in Rust Belt Cities
Refugees are active agents of urban change. According to the United Nations, 60 percent of the world’s refugees are in cities and as such, cities of today are uniquely positioned to seek solutions that address refugee concerns alongside interrelated urban social justice and sustainability issues. Much of the scholarly and policy analyses on refugees in cities have rightfully focused on issues of exclusion, violence, and encampments in host cities. While such is important, there is much to be learned about the multiple resettlement trajectories involving refugee communities across the globe. In the United States, thousands of refugees are resettled into cities. Among the major recipients of refugees in the United States are cities in the Rust Belt, a region that struggled with economic stagnation and population loss due to deindustrialization.
Focusing on the cities of Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio in the United States, this study will examine how refugee resettlement has reconfigured post-industrial urban renewal and revitalization. Through a mixed method approach that combines secondary analysis of quantitative data, policy documents and community resources, semi-structured interviews with community leaders, organization heads, and city officials, and focus group discussions of refugee residents, this project has three objectives. First, it will assess the multi-scalar policy shifts concerning refugee resettlement, refugee integration, and urban renewal. Second, the study will analyze the changes in the local housing market due to refugee resettlement, tracing both formal and informal networks that interlink refugee resettlement with the real estate market. Third, the study will examine the emergence of refugee communities in selected city neighborhoods, detailing the local dynamics that sustain the lives and livelihood of communities, including community initiatives that promote the economic, cultural, and social interests of the community. Findings from this project will help develop a framework that integrates refugee resettlement and urban revitalization, one which can guide urban policies and planning practices and that advocates for socially just and sustainable futures.
Eduardo is a Geography Professor and an Integrated Research Fellow in DINÂMIA’CET-IUL, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. He has a Ph.D.and post-Ph.D in Geography – Regional and Urban Planning, and around 200 publications, including more than 60 published papers in international journals, 12 books and 22 book chapters. His research interests are focused on EU Cohesion Policy, Territorial Impact Assessment, Territorial Cohesion, Territorial Development, Territorial Cooperation, Environmental Sustainability and Spatial Planning. He is a DG REGIO (European Commission) URBACT III and b-solutions expert, and a member of the scientific advisory panel of ESPON, and the European Commission Sounding Board of the Cohesion for Transitions Community of Practice and the Reflection Group on the future of Cohesion Policy (territorial cooperation). He is also a Regional Studies Association Fellow. He has coordinated several international policy evaluation projects and was a member of DG REGIO, ESPON and FCT projects. He was invited as a project adviser and to write reports and position papers for DG REGIO and the World Bank. He was already invited to be a keynote speaker by several International Universities and EU institutions (European Commission and Committee of the Regions). He is a member of the scientific and editorial committee of several journals and a peer reviewer of more than 35 international journals. He was a final Jury of the New European Bauhaus Prizes 2022. He is the lead expert in the Main Area of Governance in the Preparatory Action “New European Bauhaus Knowledge Management Platform” and organiser of three workshops of EURegionsWeekUniversity and chair in another.
“I was quite pleased with the news that I was selected to receive the MSRSA Grant since it is quite prestigious and competitive, and will allow me to expand my research in regional studies over the next 18 months.”
Effective Project Appraisal and Regional Development
In some countries EU Cohesion Policy (ECP) serves as the main source of policy investment for regional development. Consequently, the Project Appraisal effectiveness of ECP is crucial to fostering their regional development trends. However, our experience in analysing wide sets of ECP approved projects’ databases, in countries such as Portugal and Spain, reveal a somewhat lack of criteria in the selection of ECP financed projects. This might explain why several regions in both Iberian countries remain in the group of less development European Union (EU) regions, since both countries joined the currently known EU. In this context, the main goal of this project is to investigate the Project Appraisal process of ECP is in several EU member-states’ regions, covering all parts of Europe (South: Portugal and Spain; North: Finland and Denmark; West: Germany and Ireland; and East: Czechia and Hungary). The main objective of the proposed analysis is not only to unveil and compare the ‘administrative/institutional criteria’ used for the selection of EU Cohesion Policy implemented projects, but also ‘who’ (entity, political party, etc.) interferes in that selection. Ultimately, the project proposes to find potential co-relation causes for ‘regional development trends’ and the ‘project appraisal of ECP process’.
Membership (MeRSA) Research Grant Scheme