The JRC at the RSA Annual Conference - SMARTER Stream
The Regional Studies Association (RSA) are delighted The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) are bringing their SMARTER sessions to the RSA Annual Conference 2025 in Porto. The overall focus of the SMARTER stream is on challenges and opportunities of place-based transformations towards sustainability and resilience.
They have proposed three JRC SMARTER sessions one in collaboration with the OECD.
To submit your paper to any of the sessions outlined below, please click here
1. Innovation and entrepreneurship in rural areas: theory and practice
Session organisers:
Simone Sasso, European Commission – Joint Research Centre, Seville
Michelle Marshalian, OECD, Paris
Session Description:
Understanding and measuring innovation and entrepreneurship in rural areas is challenging, given the distinct nature of innovation in rural contexts compared to urban settings. The difference arises from various factors including the economic structures of rural areas, such as the size and sector composition of businesses, and the occupational makeup of the workforce. In this session, we invite quantitative and qualitative papers that analyse how innovation and entrepreneurship unfold in rural areas, focusing on their patterns, characteristics, and key determinants.
We also welcome both theoretical and empirical contributions that study the configurations of innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in rural areas and their role in unlocking rural development potential. Considering the importance of connectivity in rural areas, we encourage papers that examine how connections and collaborations among internal and external actors are formed or disrupted, and the role of urban-rural linkages in strengthening rural ecosystems.
2. Accelerating the achievements of the SDGs through adequate STI finance: Mapping STI financing flows, actors, and types of financing
Session organiser:
Angela Sarcina, European Commission – Joint Research Centre, Seville
Session Description:
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, positioned science, technology and innovation (STI) as one of the key pillars for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, despites its transformative role, STI remains underfunded, and the main STI investment targets such as the EU target of 3% expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP and the 2024 STISA target of 1% in Africa are not met in most countries.
To finance STI, countries and regions leverage several sources of financing for STI such as domestic public and private finance, foreign direct investment (FDI), and donor capital. However, a primary obstacle they face when implementing STI policies and strategies is the task of securing and effectively utilizing the most appropriate financial resources. Furthermore, in developing contexts, there is often a disconnect between the investment agendas, funding instruments, investors, international donors and the actual needs and priorities at the national and local levels. This misalignment can result in redundant activities and oversight of critical sustainability challenges. To ensure the successful execution of STI strategies, it is essential to understand the landscape of financing in STI, including funding mechanisms, investors, flows and geography. Besides attracting more funding, improving the effectiveness of STI funding is paramount to unleash the transformative potential of STI.
This special session is open for the submission of contributions that aim to discuss the geography and the directionality of STI financing, with a focus on Europe and Africa, but not exclusively. Moreover, it intends to shed light on mechanisms to improve the directionality of STI funding, as well as funding effectiveness.
Key topics for the session may include:
- Geography of STI financing (by type, flows, gaps, sectors, SDGs, etc.)
- Innovation in STI financing (crowdfunding, debt-for-nature swaps, results-based finance, etc.)
- STI financing and local sustainability needs
- Collaboration and cooperation in STI funding
- Mechanisms to align incentives among STI donor/investor and recipient countries and regions
- The role of the private sector in STI financing
- Governance of STI funding at country or local level
3. Smarter, stronger, resilient rural areas
Session organiser:
Lewis Dijkstra, European Commission – Joint Research Centre, Ispra
Session Description:
On many fronts, rural regions in the EU are catching up. The relative gap with urban regions in terms of economic development, productivity, broadband accessibility and the share of tertiary educated has been shrinking over the past decade. But not all rural regions follow the same pattern. Rural regions close to a city are doing most of the converging, while remote rural regions are not reducing the gap. The combination of an ageing population and low fertility rates will alter the age structure of the EU population with big increases in the share of seniors and shrinking share of children and working age adults.
Projections indicate that in the next decade the EU population will start to shrink. These demographic changes affect some regions more than others. Urban regions are the only ones to still grow, while the intermediate and rural regions will shrink. In this session, we invite analysis of economic, demographic and social change in rural regions and areas, especially using a pan-European approach.
We welcome both analysis of the past and projections of the future. Last but not least, we welcome papers that connect these changes to possibly policy responses.
Click here to submit your abstract.
Click here to return to the conference webpage.
Deadline: 19 December 2024