Regional Polarisation and Unequal Development in CEE: Challenges for Innovative Place-based Policies
- Plenary 1 (Prof. Jennifer Clark, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
- Plenary 1 (Peter Berkowitz, Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy, European Commission, Belgium)
- Plenary 2 (Prof. Dominique Foray, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
- Plenary 3 (Prof. Zoltán Kovács, University of Szeged, Hungary Academy of Science, Hungary)
- Plenary 3 (Prof. Dr. h.c. Peter Meusburger, Heidelberg University, Germany)
- Plenary 4 (Prof. Michael Keating, School of Social Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK)
- Plenary 4 (Assoc. Prof. Ewa Korcelli-Olejniczak, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland)
- Plenary 4 (Dr. Lech Suwala, Institute of Economy Geography, Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany – Early Career Plenary Speaker )
Plenary 1
Prof. Jennifer Clark, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Title: Smart Cities: Remaking Markets and Manufacturing Open Innovation Spaces
Jennifer Clark is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Director of Georgia Tech's Center for Urban Innovation, a GT Interdisciplinary Research Center.
Dr. Clark writes, consults, and speaks on the subject of national and regional development policies related to innovation and manufacturing and production (esp. among small and medium sized firm networks). She has collaborated on manufacturing and innovation policy projects with a broad range of national and state/provincial governments and non-governmental organizations including: the OECD, the EU, the Canadian, UK, and US governments, professional academic associations such as the Regional Studies Association and the Industry Studies Association, and the National Science Foundation (US).
Dr. Clark's academic leadership includes serving as the Vice-Chair (2015-2016) with a subsequent term as Chair (2016-2018) for the Economic Geography Specialty Group (EGSG) of the Association of American Geographers. Dr. Clark is also an editor of the journal, Regional Studies. She is also on the editorial review board of the book series, Economic Transformations, with Agenda Publishing. Dr. Clark has been an honorary senior research fellow with the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is also a Founding Member of the Industry Studies Association and served as the Regional Planning conference Track Chair for the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning from 2009-2012. She also served from 2012-2014 on the International Society for Optics and Photonics' (SPIE) Engineering, Science, Technology Policy Committee. Since the mid-1990s, Dr. Clark has studied the spatial and organizational dynamics of the optics, imaging, and photonics industry both in the U.S. and internationally.
Dr. Clark earned her Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University, a Master’s degree in Economic Development and Planning from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Dr. Clark teaches courses on urban and regional economic development theory, analysis, and practice as well as research design and methods.
Plenary 1
Peter Berkowitz, Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy, European Commission, Belgium
Title: Globalisation, innovation and regions: A new policy direction for Europe?
Peter Berkowitz is Head of Unit for Smart and Sustainable Growth in the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy in the European Commission. This unit is responsible for smart specialisation and regional investment in the digital economy, the environment, transport and climate change. From 2008 to 2016, he was Head of Unit for Policy Development, including the preparation and negotiation of the Commission's proposals for the reform of Cohesion Policy 2014-2020. He started his career in the Commission as a UK regional policy desk officer and has worked on enlargement, CAP reform and rural development. He has an MPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford and a DEA in Political Sociology from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. His research interests include the role of institutions and incentives in economic development, Europe's regional and rural development policies, and the geography of growth and innovation.
Plenary 2
Prof. Dominique Foray, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Dominique Foray is Full Professor of Economics and Management of Innovation at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a world-renowned expert in smart specialisation and innovation policies in the EU and beyond. He is the author of Smart Specialisation: Opportunities and Challenges for Regional Innovation Policy. Furthermore, his expertise is in the Economics of innovation, Science and technology indicators, Technology policy, Knowledge-based economy and Innovation & development.
Plenary 3
Prof. Zoltán Kovács, University of Szeged, Hungary Academy of Science, Hungary
Title: Urbanization and territorial polarization in East Central Europe
Prof. Zoltán Kovács holds a PhD from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His reserach interests include Urban geography, urbanisation, residential mobility, political geography, electoral geography, geography of post-socialist transformation in Hungary and East Central Europe. He is currently the Head of Metropolitan and Urbanisation Research Group and a member of the National Atlas of Hungary Research Group. He is currently full professor and head of department at the University of Szeged, Department of Economic and Social Geography. Previosuly he worked at the Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Department of Economic and Social Geography.
Plenary 3
Prof. Dr. h.c. Peter Meusburger, Heidelberg University, Germany
Title: Spatial Disparities of Educational Achievement. Reasons and consequences
Peter Meusburger is Distinguished Senior Professor of Social and Economic Geography at Heidelberg University. His main research interests are spatial and social disparities of educational achievement; the nexus between knowledge and space; milieus of creativity; relations between knowledge and power; spatial “mobility” of knowledge; knowledge and economic performance, and related fields. He is editor of the Springer series “Knowledge and Space” (https://knowledgeandspace.uni-hd.de/). Peter Meusburger holds a PhD in geography from Innsbruck University (Austria). Between 1983 and 2007 he had the chair of Social and Economic Geography at Heidelberg University. He was visiting scholar in Japan, USA, Hungary, China and Brazil. He served Heidelberg University as Dean and Prorector and was president of the Association of German Geographers between 2001 and 2003.
Plenary 4
Prof. Michael Keating, School of Social Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK
Title: Contesting European Regions. Rescaling and the Making of Space.
Michael Keating was born in 1950, graduated from the University of Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1971 and in 1975 was the first PhD graduate from what is now Glasgow Caledonian University. He received the qualification of Incorporated Linguist (Institute of Linguists) in 1981 and has a doctorate honoris causa from the Facultés Universitaires Catholiques de Mons (Belgium). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; of the British Academy; of the Academia Europea; and of the Academy of Social Sciences.
He has researched and taught at the University of Essex (1975-6), North Staffordshire Polytechnic (1976-9) and the University of Strathclyde (1979-88). From 1988 until 1999 he was Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. From 2000 until 2010 he was Professor of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute, Florence and was head of department between 2004 and 2007.
He is presently part-time professor at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change. From 2010 until 2013 he was an ESRC Professorial Fellow and in 2013-14 was ESRC Senior Fellow on the Future of the UK and Scotland programme. During 2015-16 he is Senior Fellow in the ESRC UK in a Changing Europe programme.
He is currently director of the ESRC Centre on Constitutional Change, a consortium of teams from five institutions to examine the issues arising from the Scottish constitutional debate.
Plenary 4
Assoc. Prof. Ewa Korcelli-Olejniczak, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Title: Dealing with social diversity in Warsaw. A reciprocity between reality and policy?
Prof. Ewa Korcelli-Olejniczak has a PhD in socio-economic geography from the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization at the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 2013, she did her habilitation in socio-economic geography at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization at the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is currently a local coordinator of an EU 7 FP project called DIVERCITIES at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor at the IGSO PAS in Warsaw and Senior lecturer at the Pedagogical Department, University of Warsaw. She has previously (1990-2000) worked on metropolitan functions of Berlin and Warsaw, interdependence of positions in the urban system of Central Europe project, ESPON Study on Urban Functions, and an E-URBS Masters in European Urban Studies. She took part in the ERASMUS project ‘Exchange of Lecturers’. Other projects include 6th EU Framework Project PLUREL: UE Peri-Urban Land Use Relationships – Strategy and Sustainability Assessments Tools for Urban-Rural Linkages; ESPON BEST METROPOLISES: Best Development Conditions in European Metropolises: Paris, Berlin, Warsaw; Central Europe Programme RENEWTOWN: New Post-socialist city: competitive and attractive; Development of the system of cities of the Warsaw region as a metropolitan region in the light of population and functional change and 7th EU FP Project DIVERCITIES.
Plenary 4
Dr. Lech Suwala, Institute of Economy Geography, Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany – Early Career Plenary Speaker
Title: Flying geese or lame ducks? Field-configuration and regional platforming –The Aviation Valley initiative in the Polish Podkarpackie Region
Dr. Lech Suwala is Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow in Economic Geography at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He is a geographer and economist with working experience in both science and industry. He holds or has held positions as Visiting Associate Professor for Innovation Management at Ritsumeikan University, Japan, Osaka; Research Fellow at Simon-Fraser-University, Vancouver, Canada; Lecturer at the University of Namibia, Windhoek and the University of Applied Sciences on Technology and Economics, Berlin. His expertise includes research on spatial creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, regional development in transition and emerging economies, as well as the management geography and internationalisation of family firms. In the last decade, he has led academic excursions to over 20 countries mostly in the Global South. Dr. Suwala earned his PhD in Economic Geography from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, a Master’s degree in Economics from Free University Berlin and a Master’s degree in Geography from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; furthermore, he was a NEURUS scholar at University of California in Irvine.