2015 RSA Annual Conference Special Sessions

SS1. Future of Cities

Session organiser(s)

*Dr. Paul Cowie, Newcastle University, UK: paul.cowie@ncl.ac.uk
Prof. Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Newcastle University, UK: mark.tewdwr-jones@ncl.ac.uk
Prof. John Goddard OBE, Newcastle University, UK: john.goddard@ncl ac.uk

*Contact person for this session

2008 marked a turning point; for the first time more than half the world’s population were living in urban areas. As cities become more and more important to health and prosperity of nations it is vital policy makers and planners have a greater understanding of the complex systems that are inherent within cities.

Much of the current research focuses on the short to medium term timescale (up to 3 years in the future). What this session seeks to do is lift the gaze of academics and practitioners to the long term of future of cities and their regions, to at least 2065, and to seek to answer four key questions. How can we model systems in order to better understand the challenges facing cities (sustainability, climate change, migration, demography, social instability, financial volatility and equality)? What will future cities look like? How can this long term future planning be used to inform strategic planning today? Who should we engage and how can we engage them in planning future cities?

This special session seeks papers examining practical examples of long term planning for cities and city regions. We also wish to invite scholars to discuss the methodological challenges faced when taking such a long term view of the future of cities and their regions.

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SS2. Europe 2020 Strategy & the Role of the Regions

Session organiser(s)

Dr. Kai Böhme, Spatial Foresight GmbH, Luxembourg

The Europe 2020 Strategy on smart, sustainable and inclusive growth for the EU is currently under discussion and most likely the Commission will present a revamped version in yearly 2015. The discussion of this Strategy focuses mainly at the European and national level.

However, whether the nation states or the EU actually do achieve the targets depends on a myriad of actions at local and regional level. Therefore, this session would like to discuss different aspects of a regional and local perspective of the Europe 2020 Strategy. Three possible fields of discussion are:

Regional diversity. Not all regions and cities have the same preconditions to contribute to the ambitious objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy. This raises questions as to whether a consequent implementation of the Strategy implies a (a) better division of labour between European cities and regions where every area contributes with what it is best at, or (b) increasing disparities as all attention and support goes to those regions make substantial contributions to achieving the set targets.

Regional targets. At present the EU headline targets have been translated into national headline targets for every EU Member State. Considering the importance of regions and cities to achieve these targets, there is a discussion about the pros and cons of also trying to establish headline targets for every region in the EU. What would be sensible to do and how could it be done?
Multi-level governance. The story of the Lisbon Agenda has demonstrated that such overarching European strategies can only be successful if they are placed in a multi-level governance context. How does the multi-level implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy look like from the perspective of regions and cities and what would be suitable models for the future?

This special session seeks papers examining practical examples as well as theoretical approaches of a regional and local perspective of the Europe 2020 Strategy (possible also just in single policy sectors).

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SS3. Have Cluster-based Economic & Regeneration Policies Lost their ‘Buzz’? Where are we Heading & where Should we be Heading with Regard to Cluster Research & Policy?

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Edward Kasabov, University of Exeter Business School, UK

Although interest in the economics of agglomeration dates back to the 19th century, only in the past three decades have clusters turned into the favoured analytic concepts and policy instruments, something that most academics readily identify with.  Clusters and related concepts such as industrial districts, growth poles, and milieux have been subjected to rigorous definitional debates and analyses from a variety of perspectives, contributing to a rich understanding of the nature of clusters and their role in national economic development, regional advancement, and regeneration policies.

Although such debates have allegedly retained their relevance to research in geography, economics and strategy, a note of caution has been more recently suggested with regards to the applicability of the cluster concept and its use in policy-making.  Prescriptions in the literature have been critiqued as ‘policy hypes’ and have been decried for assuming that cluster-based development is desirable or even inevitable.  Success stories of fully developed clusters are contrasted with many examples of poorly functioning agglomerations which neither encourage growth nor ensure survival.  The significance and benefits of spatial clustering to local firms and the regions they populate have also been questioned from a globalisation perspective.

Through this special track, we seek to critically engage with the nature and consequences, or even the necessity and desirability, of cluster-based economic and regeneration policies.  Discussions aiming to identify current challenges to the notion and theory of clusters could revolve around debates on the interactions among local specialisation, knowledge spillovers, territorially bounded learning, and globalisation with the attendant increase in the permeability of boundaries.  Are spatial clustering policies losing their ‘buzz’ in an increasingly globalised world?  Or is the role of cluster-based economic and regeneration policies increasing in the face of globalisation and other forces, allegedly eroding clusters’ raison-d-etre?  Asking questions about the performance of clusters and policies based on them will identify trajectories for future European research and policy.

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SS4. Imbalances & resilience of Europe’s peripheries in the 21st century: What is the future of these peripheries & what should we do about them?

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Edward Kasabov, University of Exeter Business School, UKuably often for the wrong reasons.  Peripheral areas are at times assumed to be marked by inequitable distribution and low levels of various types of capital, seclusion and physical isolation, low economic potential, and a multitude of constraints to successful entrepreneurship.  The ‘periphery’ not only lacks agglomeration economies, creativity and innovation but is also geographically and otherwise distant from major sources of knowledge.  Theory usually assumes that peripheries are isolated, weak and vulnerable to external shocks as well as prone to internal vicious cycles – possessing few, if any, advantages or potential.  However, though facing challenges and even decline, some lagging peripheral locations have served as exemplars of surprising dynamism and innovative capacity.  Their recent history offers glimpses of opportunities and lessons in resurgence and dynamism.

This special track seeks to advance academic and policy understanding of the imbalances and resilience of Europe’s periphery by inviting discussions that develop knowledge of exactly what happens in locations marked by some of the ingredients of geographical, social, cultural, institutional and organisational periphery.  We still know less about how and why peripheral locations remain trapped in such a position compared with those that have progressed.  Nor is it clear whether such locations and the policy solutions addressing imbalances in them are sustainable.  In an attempt to focus on Europe’s periphery, case studies as well as theoretical analyses of the forces at work in mountainous, border, and other European peripheries which are separated from centres of economic, cultural and political activity are invited.  Analyses of pathways of success in such peripheries, and the conditions under which lessons and best practice can be replicated in order to facilitate learning and development, are also welcomed.

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SS5. Re-assessing regional systems for food & associated agricultural products

Should artisanal, environmentally friendly, organic and local low-food-mile regional systems be assisted when competing against pan-European supermarkets and multinational food processors?

Session organiser(s)

Alexander J Warlow, Noridol Ltd, UK

Regional systems for food and associated products are seen as an alternative to the dominant hegemonic logic of capitalism and globalisation – a notion that is intertwined with issues of quality, wholesomeness, traceability, ethicality and justice.  Regional food production has been singled out as a solution to economic, social and environmental difficulties facing farmers and communities in peripheral regions of Europe and is supported financially by EU regional funds and by ‘protected designation of origin’ (PDO) status.  Encouraging regional food producers allegedly improves per capita incomes in such locations.

However, despite the formation and growth of nationally and regionally supported marketing boards, local farmers’ markets, cooperatives, box schemes, marketing and buying groups, incomes tend to remain low in such regions, and schemes have at times failed to make an impact on multinational retailers and large-scale food processors whose food is criticised for its dubious origin and content.  Furthermore, even when applying liberal definitions of regional food systems, they appear to account only for around 1-4 % of food production in the EU and USA.

This special track seeks to critically assess various aspects which help or hinder regional and smaller producers, and to identify ways in which these producers can compete more effectively against the productivist logic and skilled marketing of multi-nationals.  Assumptions concerning the benign nature and progressive effects of regional food systems on socio-cultural, political, and environmental realities will be analysed in order to identify their impacts on biodiversity, animal welfare, communities, environmental sustainability, regional economic development, and costs of production, which may actually be less benevolent than is often assumed.

The broad nature of the track calls for submissions including conceptual or empirical analyses, case studies, and contributions from practitioners and policy makers.

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SS6. Community Cohesion & Regional Economic Development

Parallel Roads or Congruent Paths?

Session organiser(s)

Dr. Ignazio Cabras, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK
Dr. Gary Bosworth, Lincoln Business School, University of Lincoln, UK

Policies and methods addressing the achievement of economic growth and development at regional and sub-regional level have been significantly explored and examined in the past, particularly with regard to what concerns the finding and application of sustainable solutions aimed at maximising outcomes by involving different stakeholders at different levels in the economic processes. The importance of leaders and champions in such context has been widely acknowledged and studied, although more recent research has investigated and re-evaluated the crucial role played by local communities and networks with regard to local economies. Combining a community focus with economic and entrepreneurial approaches, with a more active involvement from local communities as well as private entrepreneurs and public sector bodies, represents a challenging task but appears to be required in order to ensure a more sustainable growth particularly in remote and peripheral areas.

This special session seeks papers examining practical examples as well as theoretical approaches from a regional and local perspective of community and social cohesion in function of regional economic development. Contributors are invited to submit their papers in the form of 1) Understanding and quantifying the value of social and community cohesion for local entrepreneurs, innovations and competitiveness and 2) Identifying the ways in which public and private agents and local communities create and sustain cohesive communities. We welcome papers based on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches that can interpret and measure the significance of community and social cohesion as facilitators or drivers for regional economic development.

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SS7. New Manufacturing Trends in Developed Regions

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Alberto Bramanti, Bocconi University, Italy
Prof. Ulrich Hilpert, Friedrich-Schiller University – Jena, Germany

After decades of delocalization something is changing in European industrial perspectives. Someone is wondering if a new trend of ‘onshoring’ could replace, in the near future, the previous offshoring trend, so weakening domestic employment.

The numbers of the German recovery are quite enlightening: a rising GDP +8,7% (in the period 2009-2013), jointly with a faster rising of manufacturing production + 20,9% (same period 2009-2013).

The present special section aims at addressing three main research questions:

• Which are the assets beyond these apparently new trends? (in terms of innovation, knowledge, high skilled labour, etc.);
• What are the main differences among regional declinations of these national trends? (that is, Lombardy vs. Baden-Wurttemberg, or the ‘four motors’ of Europe, or whatever else);
• Is there any room for ‘new based policies’, able to accomplish this onshoring trend? And what shall they do, if anything, in terms of provision of business related services?

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SS8. Creative Atmosphere in Cultural Industries

Clusters, Networks & Intersectoral Linkages

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Alberto Bramanti, Bocconi University, Italy
Martha Friel, Silvia Santagata Research Centre –EBLA, Italy

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a growing attention towards cultural and creative industries as a tool for local economic development both by academics and policy makers who contributed to the construction of a wide and varied literature on the topic.
If, on the one hand, culture has been analyzed, depending on the case, as a tool for urban regeneration, as a factor of attractiveness and competitiveness in the tourism market or as a tool for place branding, the growing attention towards the creative industries has found further justification due to the interesting implications in terms of sustainable and “smart” economic growth and innovation.

However, despite the wide geographic and economic literature currently available on the creative economy, grounded theoretical models to understand how these activities contribute, in the medium and long run, to local development and how far certain social and economic configurations in these industries are able to generate a creative atmosphere in time and space are still quite limited. These aspects are vital to be understood, especially in terms of policy making.

If, however, most of the knowledge available today on the cultural and creative industries adopts an industrial and supply side perspective focusing mainly on the urban scale, scholars are increasingly seeking on the one hand to integrate the understanding of the role of interactions and linkages between actors and sectors in the creative economy (Comunian, 2011; Fiorentino and Friel, 2013 et al.), on the other to propose new analytical frameworks able to highlight the connections between and among different actors along creative production chains (Potts et al. 2008; Bertacchini and Santagata, 2012).

The session intends to discuss a number of methodological issues arising in such new analytical framework and when trying to map intra and intersectoral creative networks and their socio economic effects at the local level.

In particular, main research questions are:

• How to map and evaluate existing connections among creative industries at a local scale

• How to identify the size of intersectoral creative networks and in which phases of the value chain are these more strong and effective

• To what extent intersectoral linkages are demand-led (particularly interesting is, in this regard, the link between tourism and the creative industries)

• How to evaluate the spillover effects of these linkages both on the creative industries side and on the cultural (public) sector

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SS9. The Future of Leadership Research in Urban & Regional Development in Europe

Session organiser(s)

*Prof. Joyce Liddle, Institute of Public Management & Territorial Government, France: joyce.liddle@aniv-amu.fr
Prof. Andrew Beer, The University of Adelaide, Australia
Dr. John Gibney, University of Birmingham, UK
Prof. John Shutt, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Dr. Oto Potluka, University of Economics Prague, Czech Republic
Dr. John Diamond, Edge Hill University, UK
Dr. Lummina Horlings, WUR, The Netherlands

*Contact person for this session

Contemporary opinion suggests that there is a crisis in leadership across Europe and that accountability and legitimacy for actions are now clearly under the microscope, but we lack clear conceptual, empirical, theoretical or methodological knowledge on why and how leadership might be a crucial element in enhancing local, urban and regional performance. We need ways of uncovering the essential micro and macro aspects of leadership that play a crucial role in reinventing localities and regions. Beer highlights that leadership may be an important component within a set of institutional arrangements that constitute the ‘missing link’ in our understanding of (local) and regional growth processes.

Leadership is not a solo activity but is multi-agency and multi-level, and is shaped differently according to various institutional and cultural contexts; Regions face the issue of leadership more urgently than ever, as they are increasingly, and simultaneously, confronted with ecological, social and economic difficulties. Important drivers of change are climate change, economic and demographic challenges, unrestrained urbanization, and over-exploitation of natural resources. It is now widely recognized that regions should in future anticipate a more balanced and sustainable development in order to address these problems (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; OECD, 2006).

Yet, sustainable regional development is difficult to achieve in practice because of constraining rules and procedures, a short-term perspective, and conflicts of interests. State interventions are

often insufficient because regional development is a collective process involving networks of public and private actors in which no organization has a primacy in governance (Padt, 2007). To overcome these, and many other potential bottlenecks, the ‛human factor’ needs to be taken into account better than has been the case so far. In the end it is people who make the difference to sustainable development.

In this session we aim to bring together academics/policy/practitioners to debate the future of leadership research in Europe, within urban, regional and local development.

We particularly wish to encourage participants to attend who wish to debate any of the following topics:-

Identifying critical incidences of the micro and macro dynamics and spaces in which leadership takes place, in particular those nested systems of leadership
​Advancing our understanding of new methods for measuring and modelling leadership and leadership potential at the regional or local scale

• Exploring the notion of “Entrepreneurial Leadership (EL), as a key tool in delivering city and regional economic growth.
• ‘Smart Cities’ and the problematic nature of excluding alternative voices, at the expense of privileging privilege certain coalitions and certain ideologies
• Understanding the importance of formal and informal aspects of governance in relation to the governance of territory, and to collaborative governance within and between tiers of government.
• Looking at the differences between European City regions and the new Combined City region authorities, as in England and the incorporation of the LEPS into the new structures.
• Examining the role of state, non-state, civic, business, societal actors in urban and regional policy developments, and identify the critical leadership capacities needed for places to develop self-renewal and resilience.
• Examining the relationships between knowledge, leadership and resilience
• Considering the levels of leadership and institutional capacity to engage relevant stakeholders in collective leadership forums at urban and regional levels of governance
• Identifying evidence of catalytic projects/case studies where leaders/actors are managing growth/decline, but also investigate some of the negative aspects of failed place based leadership
• Examining the inner dimension and role of values, motivations, passions of leadership
• Identifying why leaders contribute to change & and how they mobilise people/align them around new agendas
• Understandings of common theoretical, conceptual and methodological frameworks

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SS10. What Place for Climate Resilient Regions? Lessons Past, Present & Possible Future Trends

Session organiser(s)

Dr Andrew Kythreotis, Cardiff School of Planning & Geography, Cardiff University, UK

The involvement of sub-national scales of the state in public policy represents a significant shift in modes of territorial governance. For example, in the UK, New Labour’s devolution programme from 1997-2010 transferred many powers and responsibilities down to regions and localities. Whilst intending to incorporate environmental issues into local and regional economic policy, the ‘New Localism’ underwent ‘creeping centralisation’. Recently, the Coalition Government has developed its own regional agenda, giving more powers to (city-) regions and local authorities to promote environmental and climate change policies. Such powers are designed to work in (co)relation with national policies and frameworks like National Adaptation Programmes with the intention of making regions more resilient to the impacts of environmental and climate change. Other countries have also adopted similar shifts in territorial governance, but these policy shifts may have moved in unexpected and unintended discursive ways. How these shifts materially and spatially play out at the regional level with respect to promoting more climate resilient regions is the main focus of this session.

This session will draw together work that examines how the term ‘resilience’ has featured within regional policy/governance spaces and whether these shifts in modes of territorial governance do in fact produce more climate ‘resilient’ regions. We therefore seek papers that broadly:

1. Problematize the idea of resilience as a theoretical and/or policy construct;

2. Examine the multi-scalar politics and strategies ensconced within resilient regions;

3. The role of governance actors (e.g. public, private and third sectors) in promoting regional climate resilience; and

4. Links between economic and climate resilience within regional policy.

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SS11. University Technology Transfer- The Globalization of Academic Innovation

This is a closed session for invited submissions only.

Session organiser(s)

Shiri M. Breznitz, The Munk School of Global Affairs, Canada

Different commercialization models and universities have been dominating the perception of – What is a successful technology transfer process? These models and universities have been intensively studied resulting in conflicting reviews. This session, presents the edited book “University Technology Transfer- The Globalization of Academic Innovation”. The book, edited by Breznitz S.M, and Etzkowitz, H., takes a different approach to university technology commercialization.  Providing a global perspective, the book focuses on country level approaches to the transfer of knowledge from universities to the public domain. The chapters examine policies and culture of universities involvement in economic development, university-industry relationships, and university technology commercialization. Each chapter, presented in this session, provides examples from specific universities in each country. This view allows for a wider perspective on university technology commercialization. The book changes our view from the specific case study to a regional, national, and an international comparative view. This view actually proves that it is highly difficult to compare different universities’ commercialization ability even in the same country.

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SS12. Public-private Collaborations & Regional Development

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Brita Hermelin, Linköping University, University of Bergen, in association with RESER (European Association for Research on Services)
Prof. Grete Rusten, Linköping University, University of Bergen, in association with RESER (European Association for Research on Services)

The debate about sustainable local and regional development is closely related to aspects and practices of cross-sector collaborations involving fields linked to infrastructure such as public transport, schooling, labour market issues and health care. It also includes “green projects” supporting ecological sustainable development which is a vibrant and growing area. These local joint efforts may be organized in various combinations with the public sector involving commercial actors and NGOs. We address the way local and regional composition of institutions, social capital, financial and knowledge resources, and subjective goals are important factors behind the motivation, development, experiences and outcomes of these collaborative initiatives. The session invites papers on cross-sector public-private partnerships (PPP) and other forms of collaborations and the way these initiatives are taking place in different geographical and institutional settings and fields and have roles for regional sustainable development.

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SS13. Innovation in ‘ordinary’ regions and ‘boring’ sectors

Session organiser(s)

Dr. Pedro Marques, Cardiff University, UK
Carolyn Hatch, North Central Regional Centre for Rural Development, Michigan State University, USA

Over the past few decades innovation has been a pervasive and highly influential concept in Economic Geography and other closely related disciplines. However despite the many and varied contributions to this area of research, it continues to exhibit a bias towards the study of high-tech activities in the most advanced regions of the world. In conceptual terms, most research has focused on product, rather than process or organisational innovation and on the dynamics of analytical knowledge in detriment of synthetic and symbolic knowledge. The effects of this bias are multiple both in academia and in policy making. Of particular relevance to the field of regional studies, is the lack of attention that has been devoted to innovation dynamics in less developed regions and to the interrelated topic of innovation in medium and low tech sectors.
In order to improve our understanding of innovation in these ‘ordinary’ regions and ‘boring’ economic sectors, we suggest that it will be necessary to develop, among others, the following lines of research: first, greater attention will have to be paid to institutional dynamics, in order to understand better the origins of lock-in, ‘fragmentation’ or ‘thinness’ and in particular the reasons why they are difficult to overcome. To achieve this aim we will need a better understanding of the political dynamics that underpin the creation and reproduction of institutions. Second, the theoretical models that currently exist to explain innovation in dense, well-connected regions will have to be adapted to downplay the role of science and technology. Rather they should take into account the lack of absorptive capacity in the private and public sectors that often affects these environments or even the need to invest in foundational elements, such as literacy and human capital. Third, more research should seek to understand how foreign direct investment, or client-supplier relationships can be used to upgrade economic sectors in poorer regions to help them escape the fate of branch-plant economies.

The objective of this special track is to bring together a collection of papers that address these or similar issues. We envision contributions covering topics such as:

•    Political dynamics and innovation in less favoured regions
•    Innovation in low and medium tech economic sectors
•    Using innovation to unlock economic potential in peripheral regions
•    Institutional failure in less developed innovation systems

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SS14. Building Networks for Local Growth

Session organiser(s)

Dr. Rhiannon Pugh, Dr. Amy Gibbons, Prof. Sarah Jack and Prof. Ellie Hamilton, Lancaster University Management School, UK

The main question of this session is: How can we build networks to encourage local economic growth?

Networks are seen as a vital component of regional economic growth, and developing networks is a key consideration of regional economic governance and policy. This session explores efforts that have been made to build networks at the local/regional level to better support economic growth, entrepreneurship and innovation.

A number of considerations and factors need to be taken into account when designing policies and interventions to build or create local economic networks. This session aims to shed some light on some of the pertinent questions surrounding the creation of local economic growth networks, such as:

• Which organisations, individuals and institutions should be included in the network?
• How should the geographical delineations of the network be drawn?
• What does a regional economic development network look like?
• How can policymakers create the best possible networks for regional economic growth
• What is the role for universities within regional economic growth networks?

Papers addressing these questions, or other related topics on the subject of building networks for local growth are welcomed, in particular those with a policy/practitioner focus or case studies of attempts that have made to do so.

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SS16. Comparative Policy Approaches in the Regional Development of the Low Carbon Vehicle Sector

Session organiser(s)

*Dr. Giuseppe Calabrese, CERIS – CNR, Italy
Dr. David Jarvis, Dr. Jason Begley and Prof. Nigel Berkeley, Coventry University, UK
Prof. Boleslaw Domanski, Jagiellonian, Poland

*Contact person for this session

The development of the Low Carbon Vehicle (LCV) sector has been necessitated by the global challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the de-carbonising of transport networks worldwide. Central to this process is an enormous shift away from traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) transport technologies – powered by the consumption of fossil fuels – toward greener vehicles with a smaller carbon footprint.

This transition has seen the emergence of the LCV sector as a significant industrial segment within the global automotive industry, offering new market opportunities for established automakers as well as encouraging the emergence of a diverse range of new suppliers and manufacturers seeking to exploit emerging niche markets. In turn this newly developing sector has required major policy intervention by international, national and regional actors to promote the development of the LCV sector as well as the consumption and diffusion of LCV technologies in passenger and commercial vehicles.

This session aims to focus on research comparing and contrasting the role of policy in the regional development of the LCV sector in terms of production and consumption, with a specific focus on;

• Identifying emerging regional trends in the development of the LCV manufacturing sector
• Comparing regional policy initiatives and identifying best practises in the development of the sector
• Disseminating information from ongoing regional mapping exercises of the LCV manufacturing sector
• Examining the role of sustainable mobility and social inclusion in LCV motoring and production
• Analysing ongoing private and public regional transport initiatives aimed at promoting LCV motoring
• Identifying and analysing regional variations in LCV consumption patterns

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SS17. Urban Tourism(s) Disentangling the ‘Urban Character’ of City Tourism

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Nicola Bellini, Institut du Tourisme, Groupe Sup de Co La Rochelle, France
Cecilia Pasquinelli, GSSI Cities, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy

Often represented as ‘the other’ economy, tourism is expected to further grow by 50% over the next ten years (UNWTO 2012), and international tourist arrivals are forecast to be 1.8 billion by 2030 (OECD 2014). Cities, towns and mega-cities are key destinations in the geography of global tourism, where consumption is combined with a search for learning experiences, regarding both urban heritage and urban futures. Beyond the basic definition of urban tourism as those trips to cities or places of high population density and usually characterized by short stays (WTO 2012), a new wave of interest for city tourism, due to its multifaceted nature, meaning and role in urban contexts, has been emerging. Despite much debate since the 1980s, there has been a clear lack of dialogue between those scholars analyzing tourism and those analyzing cities and urban social and economic development. As a result, there has been little opportunity to reflect on what distinguishes urban tourism from other forms of tourism, as well as its distinct role in the broader urban and regional economy.

This special session welcomes contributions on urban tourism(s) with an emphasis on its linkages with urban dynamics of change and transformation in a global world, as well as on the cross-fertilization patterns emerging within a multifunctional urban context where resources, services, infrastructures but also experiences and practices are shared by a variety of ‘city users’. A range of issues deserves further attention towards a renewed agenda on urban tourism including the sustainability of massive tourist flows (also from a ‘smart city’ perspective), the role of major urban events and mega-events, the coexistence of different kinds of tourism (business, leisure, culture, shopping etc.), the impact of destination strategies on city branding, the relationship between authenticity and cosmopolitanism, and the interplay between the ‘city experience’ and value (c0)creation in cultural and creative industries.

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SS18. Bioeconomy – Transference & Challenges for Science & Business of Regions

Session organiser(s)

Dr. Elita Jermolajeva, Latvia University of Agriculture, Latvia

Bioeconomy encompasses the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy. It thus includes agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and pulp and paper production, as well as parts chemical, biotechnological and energy industries. Bioeconomy sectors have a strong innovation potential, using a wide range of sciences (life sciences, agronomy, ecology, food science and social sciences), enabling and industrial technologies (biotechnolgy, nanotechnology, information and communication technologies (ICT) and engineering), and local and tacit knowledge. The added value of the bioeconomy lies in the interaction of the bioeconomy areas providing opportunities for new innovation.

Economic drivers on average are given a higher score than social and environmental objectives. Hence, the development of a bioeconomy policy is seen as an opportunity to enhance economic development, including both classic and new bioeconomy development sectors, while food security and the need to combat climate change are also relevant. There is great potential for creating dynamic new markets within the EU bioeconomy using resources more efficiently, adding value and creating prosperity and jobs across a broad range of sector.

Regional Support: in cases where large scale investment in the bioeconomy has been particularly successful, regional and national support, both in terms of polcy harmonization and funding, have played a critical enabling role. In future, setting up of specific interregional programmes, directed towards regional cooperation, funding and development of joint strategic policy and technology agendas, will be important.

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SS19. The Bioeconomy

Knowledge Dynamics & Regional Development Policy

Session organiser(s)

Professor Margareta Dahlström, Karlstad University, Sweden
Jukka Teräs & Gunnar Lindberg, Nordregio, Sweden

The bioeconomy, green economy, and sustainable development are related concepts that are partly overlapping and not always clearly defined. Even though the exact definitions of bioeconomy vary between the various international actors and between national governments, the main focus of the definitions is often in developing an economy that is based on sustainable utilisation of renewable resources to develop new processes and products. It is not only the integration of traditional primary sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries with the biotech-industry, but something more. It is the ambition of replacing fossil fuel and other limited resources with “the production of renewable biological resources and the conversion of these resources and waste streams in value added products”, as stated by the European Commission. Developing a bioeconomy requires a cross-sectoral approach that calls for broad system-level changes and innovation. The OECD emphasises that the emergence of bioeconomy requires an increased focus on innovation and it also puts weight on good policy decisions as the only way to ensure the development of a bioeconomy with social and economic benefits.

The bioeconomy is closely linked to innovation of goods, services and processes, e.g. in relation to clean energy and production processes, the reduction of waste, but also to organisational systems and behavioural changes that contribute to sustainable development. The role of policies at all levels from the local to the global also has a strong bearing on the concepts, and the bioeconomy is a significant concept for the institutions like the EU and OECD. The Europe 2020 strategy ‘Smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ is an example of a holistic approach aiming at an integration of ecological and social sustainable goals with goals of economic growth, where the regional level is at the heart of the matter. More recently the concepts of a bioeconomy and a circular economy have come to the fore, particularly in relation to policy but also within research. A transition to a sustainable bioeconomy is seen as a solution to the dual global challenges of greening the economy and dealing with economic austerity, and a way to contributing to regional development also in rural regions.

An important concept for understanding the bioeconomy is the concept of knowledge dynamics, which stresses that changes in knowledge and learning are driving forces behind innovation. Knowledge dynamics are increasingly cross-sectoral, multi-actor and multi-scalar. A broad perspective on innovation, recognising that innovation relates to goods, services and processes and is not ‘only’ about technology and natural scientific knowledge, is applied. Cross-sectoral knowledge interactions draw on different disciplines, industries and expertise, whereas multi-actor knowledge interactions involve different actors such as researchers, producers, consumers, the civil society and public policy makers. This is sometimes referred to as the “quadruple helix” of the regional innovation systems, and it is believed to facilitate both smarter and more inclusive transitions towards the regional bioeconomy. But, multi-scalar knowledge interactions highlight the fact that local and regional networks of interactions between actors are not sufficient. Innovation involves knowledge relations between regions, countries and continents. Cross-sectoral, multi-actor and multi-scalar knowledge interactions often play important roles for more radical innovations rather than for incremental changes in goods and services. Radical innovations will likely allow us to achieve sustainability goals such as climate change adaptation or a transition to a sustainable bioeconomy. There are strong similarities between the knowledge dynamics literature and that of eco-innovation that stress the diversity that characterises eco-innovation, user-involvement in innovation processes and the need for policy interactions e.g. public-private collaboration and market interactions. To address the complex global challenges, and contribute towards solutions, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and development projects involving stake holders needs to be developed.

To this session we welcome papers that address bioeconomy related issues particularly in relation to knowledge dynamics and regional development matters. Such issues include topics in relation to restructuring of the economy/greening of the economy, policy supporting transitions to a sustainable regional development, and eco-innovations to mention a few. Can climate change challenges act as drivers for innovation of products, services and processes, contributing to sustainable development? Can traditional industries such as the forestry based value chain be transformed to a bio based economy? How can regional development policies be designed to contribute to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth? Are new types of bioeconomy innovation systems being developed through knowledge interactions across sectors, scales and actors – and across regions or countries (quadruple helix2)?

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SS20. Economic Resilience of Firms & Territories A

Economic Determinants & Measurements

Session organiser(s)

*Paolo Di Caro, University of Catania, Italy
Antonio Dal Bianco, Eupolis Lombardia, Italy
Ugo Fratesi, Politecnico di Milano, Itlay
Paolo Rizzi, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

*Contact person for this session

This special session aims to connect the evidence emerging from different research lines, such as economics, geography, regional studies and business studies studying economic resilience. More specifically, it focuses on the importance of understanding how and why firms and/or territories (regions, cities, etc.) are more able to resist to unexpected events like economic recessions than others, the possible presence of asymmetric recovery patterns across time and space, and the relationships between economic resilience, firms’ performance and long-run development.

Drawing from the more recent advancements in this field, this session aims to bring together theoretical and empirical contributions investigating the various aspects of economic resilience: identification and origins of shocks, vulnerability and resistance of firms and territories, long-term evolutionary paths, linkages between economic resilience and institutions, factors explaining differences in resilience across firms and territories. Methodological and comparative studies are also welcomed.

In particular, this special session will focus on the contributions analysing the theoretical and empirical aspects of regional resilience, while the studies adopting local system approaches or more policy oriented should be submitted to the associated special session B (“Economic Resilience of firms and territories B: local system approaches”).

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SS21. Economic Resilience of Firms & Territories B

Local System Approaches

Session organiser(s)

*Antonio Dal Bianco, Eupolis Lombardia, Italy
Paolo Di Caro, University of Catania, Italy
Ugo Fratesi, Politecnico di Milano, Itlay
Paolo Rizzi, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

*Contact person for this session

This special session aims to connect the evidence emerging from different research lines, such as economics, geography, regional studies and business studies studying economic resilience. More specifically, it focuses on the importance of understanding how and why firms and/or territories (regions, cities, etc.) are more able to resist to unexpected events like economic recessions than others, the possible presence of asymmetric recover patterns across time and space, and the relationships between economic resilience, firms’ performance and long-run development.

Drawing from the more recent advancements in this field, this session aims to bring together theoretical and empirical contributions investigating the various aspects of economic resilience: identification and origins of shocks, vulnerability and resistance of firms and territories, long-term evolutionary paths, linkages between economic resilience and institutions, factors explaining differences in resilience across firms and territories. Methodological and comparative studies are also welcomed.

In particular, this special session will focus on the contributions adopting local systems approaches or more policy oriented, while the studies analysing the theoretical and empirical aspects of regional resilience should be submitted to the associated special session A (“Economic Resilience of Firms and Territories A: Economic Determinants and Measurements”).

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SS22. New Global Dynamics in Manufacturing & Services Relocation

Session organiser(s)

Dr Pawel Capik, Keele University, UK

One of the outcomes of the recent global recession has been a noticeable increase in support for ‘made locally’ expressed by customers and politicians alike, particularly in advanced nations. Both, the recession and ‘made locally’ attitudes, contribute to changing sourcing and production strategies employed by multinational enterprises and a move towards backshoring or reshoring of economic activity to the firm’s country of origin. While the ‘global shift-back’ is yet to fully materialise, such emerging trends in relocation of manufacturing and services influence directions and volumes of inward investment flows and create diverse impacts in home and host regional economies.
Backshoring, arguably, is a supply chain strategy matter, but produces significant political, social, economic and environmental consequences and shapes development processes of areas providing and receiving returning activities. Consequently to many public institutions tasked with local and regional development, backshoring acts as an incentive to review inward investment support frameworks and regional policy approaches.

In recent decades the focus on manufacturing and later services location has been subsumed to the outsourcing and offshoring decisions, reflecting the dominant trends driven by businesses’ desire to benefit from efficiency advantages offered by low-cost economies.
More recently corporate attention has shifted to examine whether or not low-cost locations still provide optimal conditions for competitive and profitable operations. Correspondingly national, regional and local authorities in both developed and developing nations use ever more sophisticated regional policy tools to attract and retain investors. Research on these issues is only evolving, and this special session is designed to provide an arena to further incipient discussions and pave the way for identification of future research directions. The papers in this session will explore recent dynamics of manufacturing and services relocation, its consequences and policy solutions aimed at attraction of backshored investments to areas until recently considered ‘passé’.

The contributions may explore, but should not be limited to the following issues:

• emerging trends in relocation of economic activites
• backshoring trends in manufacturing and service sectors
• factors determining backshoring decisions
• regional policy measures supporting backshoring of manufacturing and services
• consequences of backshoring for host and home regiona/local economies
• regional revival or downgrading of skill base
• backshoring, knowledge back-transfers and regional innovation systems
• backshoring as a long-term trend or a short-lived phenomenon

Conceptual as well as empirical papers utilising qualitative and quantitative methodologies are welcome.
It is envisaged that a selection of papers presented at the session will form a special issue of a relevant peer-reviewed journal (details to be confirmed).

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SS23. EU Cohesion Policy

Session organiser(s)

Dr. Nicola Francesco Dotti, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium
Dr. Marcin Dabrowski, TU Delf, The Netherlands

In the framework of the RSA research network on the Cohesion Policy, we would like to invite the participants in the RSA Master Class to follow-up and join the next RSA Conference in Piacenza. We would like to organise contributions on the EU Cohesion Policy in one or more structured sessions on the topic. We have presented some of the topics related to the Cohesion Policy in which we expect contributions. This will be the opportunity to continue the scientific debate on this policy, initiated during Open Days.

We invite contributions on a range of topics including but not limited to:

• Administrative capacity
• Territorial impacts and effectiveness
• Conditionalities (macro-conditionalities and ex-ante conditionality)
• Evaluation and monitoring of the policy
• Principal-agent perspectives
• Effect on domestic policy actors and practice
• Cross-national learning and diffusion of practices across Europe and beyond
• Marco-regional strategies, cross-border programmes and the emergence of government scales
• The Political implications of the new tools and regulations in the 2014-2020 programming period
• Multi-level governance
• Financial instruments
• Case studies of implementation at the national and regional levels
• Cohesion Policy and its capacity to address the major societal challenges (e.g. climate change and energy efficiency)
• The urban dimension of EU cohesion policy
• Urban-rural dynamics and the challenge of peri-urban spaces

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SS24. Re-assessing Rural Areas

Approaching the Challenges for new “Ruralities”

Session organiser(s)

Valentina Cattivelli, Eupolis Lombardia, Italy

Rural areas are at times assumed to be characterized by low distribution income and low levels of social and economic capital. This lagging condition was due to a multitude of constraints to development: poor economic potential, isolation, absence of agglomeration economies and creativity. In addition, many scholars thought that these areas were only reservoir of natural resources or specialized only in traditional agricultural activities.

At present, these areas are facing severe pressure: urban sprawl and secondary and tertiary sectors restructuring promote their evident transformation into new territories with untraditional characteristics. In fact, these changes are not only economic, but also define social and environmental variations; at the same time, the reaction to these changes is not identical for all rural areas.

“Rural” area is now a succession of full and empty spaces, marginal and rehabilitated areas, from the apparent concentration of population and economic activities or disorderly dispersion of settlements, sometimes abandoned. It has a variety of landscapes, such as small urban areas and cities, forests, farms, greenfield sites and concentrations of industrial crops. It has also a social structure and relationship that is not on the most typical values of rural society and an economic structure based not only on agriculture. Rural areas are facing their traditional isolation, weakness and vulnerability in new ways.

This session would like to invite participants to critically debate about all these changes. Assumptions concerning transformations on socio-cultural, environmental and economics realities will be analyzed in order to identify their impacts on rural characteristics and their possible resurgence and dynamism. In addition, government and promotion choices about these changes will be studied. The session tried to bring together papers from a range of disciplines, such as regional and rural economics, environmental and social studies.

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SS25. Mapping Poverty, Inequality & Unemployment in Small Areas

Session organiser(s)

Enrico Fabrizi, Università Cattolica del S. Cuore, Italy

Statistics play a crucial role in providing insights into economic and social phenomena, by supplying quantitative methods and reliable data. In particular, National Institutes in charge of the production of official statistics have nowadays to face the growing need of timely, high quality and relevant estimates of parameters of interest via sample surveys. These requirements have to meet also the need to moderate costs, reduce the response burden on units, and fully exploit the opportunities of linking survey samples and other data sources (Censuses, population and other registers, “big data”) provided by developments in technology. This session is focused on the statistical estimation of indicators of social cohesion and sustainability, with a special attention to poverty, inequality and unemployment related parameters.

Small area estimation (SAE) literature and research have known a tremendous growth in recent years. The research area is still very active, and requires interdisciplinary efforts. The present special section aims at addressing these research questions:

• Definition and estimation strategies for new social cohesion indicators for small geographical areas
• Assessing the uncertainty of indicators estimated for small areas
• Analysis for the spatial and time dynamics of indicators estimated in small areas

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SS26. Innovative Financing Mechanisms for Green Transition Strategies in Cities

From Climate to Resource Efficiency Finance to Overcome the Lack of Urban Financial Resources

Session organiser(s)

Corrado Topi and Valentino Marini Govigli, Green Economics Group (GECO), Stockholm Enviroment Institute,University of York, UK

Policy makers and planners in cities are facing increasing pressure as a result of global and local environmental changes, economic crisis and a rapidly increasing urban population. In particular, cities’ natural resource consumption trends will need to be revisited and drastically reduced, and the current unsustainable urban development model will need to be steered towards a sustainable and resilient paradigm, i.e the green economy.

Cities are the ideal decision making level to respond to the challenges, because they can answer swiftly and they are the closest to the citizens. Yet, the deployment and implementation of green development strategies at city level faces many challenges. In particular, it is hindered by restricted financial resources and low level of stakeholders engagement. Even within the European Union, little has been done to implement short, mid and long term green investments due to restricted financial resources in an era of austerity and global recession.

A possible solution to this challenge is the adoption and development of alternative and innovative local or distributed funding mechanisms, e.g. crowdfunding and mutual funds, which do not rely on national level support. Characterised by higher levels of stakeholder involvement and reduced reliance on external funding, they might be proven to be essential tools to effectively initiate bottom-up green innovations and accelerate the green transition in cities. Despite the rise of these mechanisms in many economic sectors in recent years, the evaluation and investigation of outcomes derived by their implementation within the urban green agenda is still unexplored.

The aim of the special session we propose is to invite scholar, researchers, practitioners and policy makers to discuss and evaluate innovation financing and delivery mechanisms to address the funding of green transitions strategies in cities, and in particular of kick starting the process or urban green innovation.

The debate will focus on how these mechanisms can be developed and deployed, and will be structured on four different dimensions:

• Size: small cities, medium cities, large cities and conglomerated
• Sprawl: high density cities vs. urban sprawl
• Income: high income countries cities vs. low income countries cities
• Development models: fast/dynamic vs. slow/static

Particular attention will be given to climate financing. We will welcome contributions from different disciplines, countries, sectors and from researchers at different career stages.

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SS28. Critical Studies of Urban & Regional Development

Session organiser(s)

Tomas Mitander, Line Säll and Andreas Öjehag-Pettersson, Karlstad University, Sweden:

The conference theme of social and economic imbalances, inequalities and ecological risks in the current state of globalisation puts values and institutions at the centre of discussion. This session approach such current states of globalisation, regional development and growth agendas in terms of politics and power. More precisely we interpret globalisation, global growth agendas and associated policies as nested in and produced by power relations where social values and practices are reinterpreted and challenged. We find expressions of this for instance in the way that contested boundaries and binaries such as the international-local, urban-rural, economy-politics, public-private and state-citizen are renegotiated in perceived times of globalisation, competition and risk. Accordingly, social values such as democracy and equality are put at stake.

Therefore we wish to invite scholars to discuss, analyse and interpret current trends within urban and regional development using a critical perspective where power and the political are common denominators. We welcome empirical case studies as well as methodological and/or theoretical papers that critically engage with contemporary issues within urban and regional regimes. The session organisers especially welcome empirical contributions on European policies on economic growth and social cohesion, as well as their local implications. Our understanding of critical perspectives includes, but is not limited to, foucauldian themes such as questions of power/knowledge and governmentality analysis, post-structuralist discourse theory (PDT), critical discourse analysis (CDA), (post-) Marxist perspectives, feminist perspectives and post-colonial modes of analysis.

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SS29. Feeding the Green City

Slow Food & Sustainability

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Paolo Corvo, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra-Pollenzo, Italy
Dr. Stefano Marras, University of Milano Bicocca, Italy
Dr. Henk Renting, Ruaf Foundation, The Netherlands

The current debate about city aims at the concept of smart city, a light urban reality integrated with the systems of communication. In this perspective is introduced the concept of green city, that makes a sustainable relationship with the environment, the territory and the idea of her development. The green city changes the concept of the daily way of living, that it becomes less artificial and more natural, with a rehabilitation of the relationship with the country and the rurality. A more liveable city becomes more tourist attractive and able to satisfy the demands of travellers that seek art and culture but also nature and a sustainable landscape. The food and wine tourism is also very widespread with attention to knowing local products and rural territories, such as the didactic farms.

The green city is gaining appeal and interest with a different way of approaching food, focusing on its quality and freshness, longer and more relaxed time for the main meals, ‘slow food’. Spending more time at lunch and dinner means enhancing the work of those who produced the food, knowing in particular the quality of each ingredient, ensuring the sustainability of the industry, finally emphasis on the value of eating together. In this perspective it is interesting to notice that some of the citizens buy organic food at farmers markets or go directly where the products are cultivated.

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SS30. Unconventional Businesses in Unconventional Places

Session organiser(s)

Dr. Darja Reuschke, University of St. Andrews, UK
Prof. Stephen Syrett, Centre for Enterprise & Economic Development, Middlesex University, UK

The nature of businesses, the ways in which they operate and their geography have changed substantially due to sectoral and occupational restructuring, ICT and increased outsourcing and globalisation. This has led to a steep rise in microbusinesses and one-person businesses and their interaction in complex business relationships across multiple spatial scales.

Businesses have not only become smaller, but increasingly locate and network in ‘unconventional’ spaces. Increasing and now quite large numbers of businesses are based in the home of the owner. It is estimated that at least half of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the UK, the US and Australia are home-based. At the same time, co-working spaces and informal social spaces such as cafes, community centres and workhubs have recently been apparent as spaces were ‘unconventional’ business owners meet and network.

Papers are invited that investigate empirically or conceptually emerging types of businesses including online businesses, home-based businesses and mobile businesses ad their relations to space and place. Questions this session seeks to address include: How do these emergent business types shape space and place? How locally/regionally embedded are they? What are the appropriate geographic scales to understand these businesses? What are their impacts upon processes of local economic development and growth?

This session will be linked to the Seminar series Entrepreneurship in Homes and Neighbourhoods (funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council). It is envisaged to publish papers together with other papers from the seminar series.

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SS31. Mega Events & Regional Development

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Graeme Evans, Middlesex University, UK

This session will bring together a selection of speakers/presenters on the topic of Mega-Events, drawn from the Mega-Events Research Network and local researchers and policy-makers engaged with the Milan Regional EXPO2015 (e.g. Milano-Bicocca, Polimi universities) and LABEXPO.

These presentations will represent a range of city-regions and types of mega-event including Olympics, EXPOs, Capitals of Culture where major regeneration, regional development and issues of impact, identity and governance provide a comparative framework.

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SS32. Alternative Spaces in the Urban Region

Translocal Movements & Communities in a Time of Global Growth Agendas

Session organiser(s)

Jens Kaae Fisker, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Letizia Chiappini, University of Milan Bicocca, Italy
Giampaolo Nuvolati, University of Milano Bicocca, Italy

Urban regions are incessantly incomplete. Hence they never arrive at a state in which they are able to exclude activities that are incompatible with the dominant form. The abstract space of capitalist cities (Lefebvre, 1991), therefore does not inhibit, but merely constrains and conditions the emergence of non-capitalist activities, economies and social formations. This leaves a space within urban regions for resistance, subversion and activities not governed by market logics. But the social formations thus created are also rendered open to capitalist reappropriation and marketisation (Daskalaki & Moulds, 2013). Moreover these social formations are often characterised by forming both place-based communities and transnational networks of interaction and exchange. Locally embedded networks thus fuse and interact with far reaching virtual networks. Intricate issues of translocality are therefore also at stake.

Currently there is a surge of activities and movements in urban regions across the globe, which could be useful to shed new empirical light on these matters. We therefore seek contributions that grapple with the various kinds of activities that are currently in play. These include the maker movement, peer-to-peer communities, hackers movements, social streets and various urban subcultures. The list is far from exhaustive and we would be interested in papers concerning any urban activity, movement or social formation that contributors might find relevant to the general issues at stake. Both empirical and theoretical contributions are welcome.

The main questions we wish to address and discuss in the session are:

• In a seemingly borderless world of knowledge flows, in particular tin technology, why and how does local interaction continue to matter?
• What is the role of embedded, virtual and temporary translocal networks and communities in spreading identity, “rituals”, products, practices and values?
• What role does the local context play in defining relations, interactions and their different functions and features?
• How are translocal movements and communities related to capitalist growth agendas (e.g. at the level of the urban region)?
• Mappings of alternative and subversive spaces in the urban region; e.g. makerspaces, fablabs, etc.
• Emerging structures of governance at a variety of scales – i.e. neighbourhood, urban region, national – aimed at facilitating and regulating (or perhaps even inhibiting) such activities, movements and social formations
• Digital production of knowledge in relation to embedded local networks
• Issues of translocality, including tensions between authenticity and global uniformity

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SS33. The Resilience of Bergamot Farmers in the Reggio Calabria Province of Southern Italy

Session organiser(s)

Thomas Zervas, The Huggard Consulting Group, Luxembourg
Stephen Weller, International Fragrance Association, Belgium

Bergamot is a citrus fruit with more than 90% of the global production coming from the Reggio Calabria province in southern Italy. It is used almost exclusively as an essential, high-quality fragrance ingredient. Reggio Calabria is one of the poorest provinces within the European Union and experiences high unemployment. This situation has worsened in recent years as a result of the global economic crisis.

A study was carried our to examine the impact of the stability that has occurred in the bergamot market in the past six years as a result of the reform of the bergamot value chain. The study took two approaches to evaluate the impact, based in a survey of representatives of some 326 households who produce bergamot.

Firstly, the results of the study were analysed to examine what the reported impact of the changes were, inter alia, on farm profitability and on its contribution to the household income and intention to invest. The second and major purpose of the study was to attempt to quantify these impacts. To do this, the concept of livelihood resilience was applied to measure the impact of the stability of the bergamot market on the ability of households to cope with economic challenges.

Subsequent to extensive literature searches, the adaptation of the approach, development of a bespoke questionnaire, research in the region and the training of a team of interviewers, 326 interviews were carried our in three interview centres across the province in March and April 2014, using a CAPI-adapted technique.

The analysis of the responses to the questionnaire identified that there had been impact on the households involved in bergamot production. In the seven-year period under consideration, the number who reported that they could live exclusively from their agricultural activities increased from 15% to 26%. Over the same period, the number reporting that their farming activities were profitable increased from 30% to 71%. In addition, 73% of those interviewed had a positive or very positive view of their future in agriculture and 83% decaled the intention to expand their bergamot production. It should be noted that the positive changes and outlooks are in the context of the worst recession in decades. Critically, almost 70% have seen their income increase by between 32% and 35% in the seven years to 2014. This is against a real income decrease for Italy as a whole of 13% between 2007 and 2013, as reported by the International Monetary Fund.

In terms of the resilience-based approach, seven components of resilience were identified. For each component, a range of observable variables that characterise households and their ‘behaviour’ were selected: Economic Connectivity (EC), Agricultural Assets and Technologies (AAT), Non Agricultural Assets (NAA), Access to Economic Resources (AER), Social Networks and Information (SNI), Household Structure (HS) and Human Capital (HC). These seven components (latent variables) were calculated from the observable variables using a stand factor analysis with appropriate criteria to determine significance. These, in turn, using a similar approach, were combined to give one overall resilience index. A number of tests were carried out to check and, ultimately, confirm the robustness of the approach.

The study demonstrated that bergamot production under stable market conditions provides an opportunity to diversify income sources and obtain additional income fro the entire household rather than solely for individual family members. Bergamot production was identified as both being more profitable than other crops and contributing to farmers’ resilience by increasing their access to networks. The market stabilisation which occurred in the last six years has provided additional security to the bergamot growers’ community and has notably increased their livelihood resilience.

As resilience is a context-based approach, the role of bergamot production in the resilience building process was determined via simulating, using scenario-based approach to measure the impact of bergamot on the resilience of the entire sample and on various sub-groups. This analyses showed that if the cultivation of bergamot were no longer carried out it would induce a decrease in producers’ resilience by 21%.

The new introduced concept of resilience in the socio-economic context appears promising for further research as it can yield data on current status, on what has been achieved to date and on how to optimise future interventions both in developing and more developed regions.

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SS34. Cities of the Mind

Subjective Wellbeing in Urban Regions

Session organiser(s)

Prof. Philip S. Morrison, Victoria University of Wellington
Prof. John Helliwell, University of British Columbia, Canada
Mikko Weckroth, University of Helsinki, Finland

What makes people living in some places happier than others? Why are the largest of our cities typically characterised by lower levels of subjective wellbeing than many smaller settlements within the same country? Why does the level and structure of wellbeing differ from one city to another? What can be done within settlements to enhance peoples subjectively appreciated quality of life?

At very high levels of aggregation measures of material wellbeing (e.g. income) and subjective expressions of wellbeing (e.g. satisfaction with life) are positively correlated. Developed economies generally express higher levels of subjective wellbeing than do developing economies for example. The strength of this positive relationship between the objective and subjective becomes weaker when we consider regions, cities, neighbourhoods and finally individuals themselves. There are many factors that intervene between material and subjective quality of life and one of these is the settlement context in which people live.

At the same time, wellbeing is not a unitary construct; there are many different ways of measuring and constructing indices of wellbeing. How these behave in different regional and urban contexts is of particular interest.

From a practical and policy perspective, we are interested in developing measures and approaches to their analysis which can help enhance the wellbeing and ‘happiness’ of those living in cities and integrating a regional perspective into the growing number of national perspectives now being constructed in many countries.

We welcome papers addressing one or more of the issues above.

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SS35. ESPON Session

Practical Tools for Analysis & Policy-Making

Session organiser(s)

Sandra Di Biaggio, ESPON Coordination Unit, Luxembourg

The ESPON 2013 Programme has developed a series of practical tools to support and simplify the use and analysis of the data and maps provided by the ESPON projects and with that to facilitate the use of territorial evidence by policy makers and researchers.

The tools developed within the ESPON Programme support the preparation of territorial policy strategies and planning processes and disseminate the data collected and other results from the ESPON projects. The tools, in the form of web applications accessible through the ESPON website, provide an easy communicative way to disseminate ESPON’s main findings and results e.g. via the use of maps. This enables policy-makers and other practitioners to position their region or city in a wider European context, compare their region with other regions and understand the main relevant European policies that might impact territorial development.

This special session seeks papers presenting web applications developed to support policy-makers and other practitioners to understand their region or city in a wider European context and discussing experiences.

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SS36. ESPON Session

The European Territory in the Future

Session organiser(s)

Peter Mehlbye, ESPON Coordination Unit, Luxembourg

The world is changing rapidly and getting increasingly interdependent. New markets and trade patterns are in the making. People move to settle down to work or visit destinations further away from home than before. Global events impact daily life and living conditions such as the change of climate.

Preparing territories, regions and cities for the future requires benchmarking in a wider territorial context and openness for seeing opportunities for development and challenges that this might bring. This “shrinking world” also brings new emphasis to the need for considering long-term territorial visions, strategies and scenarios at a higher scale than before, even at EU level.

The support from research to processes is important to ensure evidence-informed alternatives and realism into the debate and decisions. Often research is reactive or at best has a short or medium long time horizon ahead. Dealing with territorial development however requires a long perspective, to 2050 or even longer, and the use of forecasting and modelling showing possible futures for the larger territory as such, as well as for its regions and cities.

The session tends to stimulate academic interest in supporting considerations related to the European territory in the Future and to address the following 3 questions:

1. How can we use forecasting and modelling to better understand opportunities and challenges for Europe, its regions and cities (economic development and trade, employment, demography and migration, innovation, sustainability, climate change, social inclusion and financial stability)?
2. What can Europe learn from national and regional efforts to consider long term territorial futures and in terms of visions, strategies and scenario building?
3. How can we create shared ownership and engage the society in formulating wishes and ensure governance that can make dreams come true?

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SS37. Regional Territorial Development Policies on the move
in Emilia-Romagna and other European Regions

Session organiser(s)

Silvia Grandi, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Italy:

Emilia-Romagna Region has been often indicated as one of the leading innovative region in Europe.

Over the years the Region has developed distinctive policy models and instruments in several fields. Examples are spanning from well-being and quality of life to technological and social innovation, to individual and collective entrepreneurship, territorial and urban development, tourism and cultural policy, land use, integrated and participatory planning, policy and programme evaluation, European territorial cooperation, etc. and, lately, in disaster recovery & reconstruction management for territorial development.

This session aims at presenting some of the most relevant experiences, especially related to regional, national and European cohesion and territorial development policies by relevant key specialists of the Emilia-Romagna Region system. Moreover, this special session seeks papers examining cases and as well as theoretical approaches from a national, regional and local perspective on regional economic development tools and cases to be related to the Regional Development policies related to Emilia-Romagna and beyond. We welcome papers based on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches that can interpret and analyses policy, plan, project, public investments, etc. that acted or potentially can act as drivers for regional economic development.

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SS38. Cross-Border (Research)/Regions

Session organiser(s)

Merethe Lerfald, Ostlandsforskning, Norway
Lotta Braunerhielm, Karlstad University, Sweden

Cross-border research, including studies of the significance and challenges of cross-border regions, has gained increasing interest among scholars internationally. Cross-border regions often inhabit dynamic and heterogeneous resources, which may provide both obstacles and possibilities for achieving mutual aims of growth and sustainability. This special session serves as a meeting place for researchers interested in cross-border regions, as way of sharing and discussing relevant research questions, results and case studies. We welcome a wide range of topics, including cross-border mobilities such as cross-border shopping and commuting, regional enlargement, cross-border innovation systems and policy and planning issues. The session also encourages presentations which raise methodological issues in a cross-border context, including research collaboration across national, disciplinary and sectorial borders.

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SS39. New Manufacturing, Creative Productions, Innovative Workplaces & Urban Space

Session organiser(s)

Hub “Innovazione e Spazio Urbano”[1], DAStU, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Prof. Antonella Bruzzese
Prof. Ilaria Mariotti
Dr. Stefano Di Vita

This session aims to foster a debate about the spatial and socio-economic features of some new innovative workplaces, which are difficult to be identified and defined for the time being. Among those, we can list co-working and Fab Lab spaces, where handmade work and intellectual work, (creative) production and experimental research, traditional and new technologies are increasingly mixed up. Besides, even other typologies arise such as spaces where production and consumption of different kind coexist and/or where, for example, workspaces, exhibition activities, commerce, café or even restaurants are integrated.

Specifically, on the one side, co-working spaces are regarded as “serendipity accelerators” designed to host creative people and entrepreneurs who endeavour to break isolation and to find a convivial environment that favours meeting and collaboration (Moriset, 2014), thus enhancing business opportunities (Pais, 2012). Several are, indeed, the immaterial benefits of co-working: knowledge transfer, informal exchange, collaboration and interaction with others. On the other side, Fab Labs are local, small-scale workshops, equipped with digital fabrication machines, which allow the transformation of digital data into physical objects and vice versa. Internet globally connects Fab Labs, enabling Fab Lab users (“Makers”) to share knowledge, expertise, ideas, projects and data; this interaction is even more relevant and has a wider impact on urban space when other kind of practices and functions are mixed within the Fab Lab themselves.

The proliferation of these innovative workplaces, starting from the late 2000s, can be related to the following phenomena: (i) the globalization and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution, with the consequent increasing importance of the “geographical proximity” for the innovative activities (McCann, 2008; Rodriguez-Pose and Crescenzi, 2008); (ii) the new industrial revolution and the makers’ movement (Rifkin, 2011; Micelli, 2011; Anderson, 2012); (iii) the sharing economy; (iv) the current economic downturn.

The recent booming of co-working and Fab Lab spaces – frequently referred to market sectors ignored by large companies and often located in urban brownfields (both central or peripheral) – reflects a rapid and structural evolution of the contemporary economy and society towards new forms of collaboration and sharing, which are strictly related to the increasing use of internet and social networks. The consequent development of the new sharing economy is based on the optimization of resources (used rather than bought!), on peer-to-peer relationships, as well as on the evolution of technological platforms which favour collaboration and sharing (of goods, material and digital services, spaces, ideas, time, skills, money).

The above mentioned innovation workplaces have been well-covered by medias, while they have so far remained almost ignored by the academic literature. To investigate such phenomenon a multidisciplinary approach is advocated, thus the present session aims to collect scientific papers arising from different disciplines (architecture, geography, planning and urban studies).

Specifically, the following main research questions are addressed:

• How do these new phenomena challenge the key words of urban studies’ theoretical framework (i.e. global city region; planetary urbanization, postmetropolis, urban metabolism, but also cluster, industrial district, creative city etc.)
• Within the urban context, where are the new workplaces located and why?
• Which are the main characteristics (i.e. the sub-sector they belong to, their spatial organization, the facilities they offer, their common practices, the internal and external organizations and relationships) of these innovative workplaces?
• What is their socio-economic impact on the urban context? Do they have any impact on the local public space? Do they enhance knowledge diffusion, sustain productivity growth and foster innovation at urban level?
• Can these innovative workplaces be regarded as an opportunity to foster urban regeneration processes, starting from making use of empty spaces? In this case, which are the differences and similarities between inner cities and wider metropolitan regions?
• Are policy makers keen to foster these new workplaces? If so, which urban policy and planning tools or which strategic and design approaches have been applied?
• Consequently, how can urban policies and plans (i.e. the traditional spatial plans and the new smart city programs) affect the development of new innovative workplaces?

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SS40. Making an Impact

Authors, Articles, Altmetrics

Session organiser(s)

Mark Robinson, Talyor and Francis, UK

You’ve had a paper accepted for publication in a scholarly journal – congratulations! However, the work doesn’t end there. There is lots that you can do, making the most of your networks and subject knowledge, to complement marketing by the journal’s publisher. This session will include a series of practical suggestions for helping to raise the profile and impact of your work; from the most effective ways to use social media to recording your own video abstract. We will also explore the benefits of using Kudos – a new web-based service that helps researchers to maximize the visibility of their published articles (www.growkudos.com).

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SS41. On Regionalism Within International Law: A Themed Panel

This is a closed session for invited submissions only

Session organiser(s)

Michael Salter, University of Central Lancashire, UK

Developing empirically informed regional approaches within international relations and legal theory. Are the emergence of the Eurasian Economic Organisation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and a Pan-African Court as part of the African Union evidence of new and potentially resilient forms of transnational for of regionalism relevant to within transnational legal regulation?

It also brings together a distinct pluralistic theoretical standpoint with two empirical case studies that both illustrate and challenge the received theoretical Grossraum model created by the “realist tradition” in international law and relations.

Our panel will critically assess this general theoretical model for resilient forms of legal-constitutional governance and regulation.

This model is assessed both in itself and – crucially – in relation to its adequacy and sufficiency for conceptualising the evolution of two new regional bodies: namely, the SCO (2001 – ) and more embryonic current attempts to create Pan-African form of legal governance and dispute resolution. These largely concern human rights issues, defined regionally mainly in terms of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.

Our themed presentations will include specific presentations on regionalism theory (Grossraum analysis) (Michael Salter, UCLan), the SCO as both an example and in part a challenge to traditional theory (Yinan Yin, UCLan), and the extent to which Pan-African legal institutional developments signal early stages of regional governance centred in part around the African Union. (Allwell Uwazuruike, UCLan) and Valentina Meiksane with respect to region alist  elements of the newly created Eurasian Economic Union.

The panellists are all conducting research at Lancashire Law School, UCLan, UK

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SS42. International Policy Transfer & Lesson-drawing Regional & Urban Policy

This is a closed session for invited submissions only

Session organiser(s)

Laura Polverari, University of Strathclyde, UK
Ida Musiałkowska, Poznań University of Economics, Poland
Marcin Dąbrowski, TU Delft, The Netherlands

In a globalising world, many countries and regions face similar challenges. As a result, governments and policy-makers increasingly look for policy solutions, ideas and ‘good practice’ examples from other countries, seeking to adapt them to their domestic contexts. At the same time, certain states or supranational and international organisations are keen to export their policy approaches and tools to other countries for pragmatic or normative reasons striving to project some of its policy norms and values beyond its borders. This can be exemplified by the long-standing involvement of European and American consultants in transport policies and urban planning in Latin America or the Balkans, the foreign-designed eco-cities and industrial parks in China or the increasingly prominent dialogues on regional and urban policy between the EU and the major developing countries. Such processes of transnational learning, import/export of models and exchange of knowledge on policy approaches tend to be embedded in international relations, diplomacy or para-diplomacy, and relate to an expanding range of policy areas, involving governmental and non-state actors at multiple territorial levels.

While this phenomenon appears increasingly commonplace, there is still a shortage of studies looking at the policy transfer in the field of regional and urban development policy, even though such transfer does take place, as illustrated by the diffusion of place-based approaches to regional policy among the OECD countries, adoption of shared regional policy practices across the EU Member States through processes of Europeanisation, the diffusion of regional development policy approaches across the Latin America or cross-national cooperation on development of smart cities in the Middle East and East Asia.

The papers presented at this special session will explore this under-researched topic. The papers will examine motivations for engaging in these types of activities, the mechanisms of influence, the actors involved as well as the outcomes of policy transfer and the diffusion of regional policy approaches across the globe.

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