A welcome message from the RSA Ambassador to Switzerland, Hugues Jeannerat
Chers et chères membres de la RSA en Suisse,
Au cœur de l’Europe, la Suisse est, à de nombreux égards, un laboratoire économique, social, politique et environnemental du développement régional et urbain. N’hésitez pas à me contacter si vous souhaitez bénéficier du soutien de la RSA pour développer et valoriser nationalement et internationalement vos projets et vos recherches dans ce domaine. Je me ferai un plaisir de vous aider.
Liebe Mitglieder der RSA in der Schweiz
Im Herzen Europas ist die Schweiz ein wirtschafliches, soziales, politisches und ökologisches Laboratorium für Stadt- und Regionalentwicklung. Wenn Sie von Seiten der RSA Unterstützung brauchen, um Ihre Projekte und Forschung in diesem Bereich national und international zu entwickeln und zu verbreiten, stehe ich Ihnen zur Verfügung. Ich helfe gerne.
Cari membri di RSA in Svizzera,
nel cuore dell’Europa, la Svizzera è laboratorio per lo studio di processi di sviluppo regionale ed urbano sotto vari punti di vista, economico, sociale ed ambientale. Nel caso in cui abbiate bisogno di supporto da parte di RSA nello sviluppo e promozione delle vostre ricerche e di progetti nazionali e internazionali, in questo campo di studi, non esitate a contattarmi. Sarò felice di aiutarvi.
Dear RSA members in Switzerland,
In the heart of Europe, Switzerland is in many respects an economic, social, political and environmental laboratory of urban and regional development. Please contact me if you need support from the RSA to develop and promote your research and projects in this domain at national and international level. I will be very happy to help you.
Hugues Jeannerat
Institute of Sociology, University of Neuchâtel
Upcoming Events
2023 RSA Annual Conference Special Sessions
2023 RSA Annual Conference “Transforming Regions: Policies and Planning for People and Places” – Ljubljana, Slovenia – 14 June 2023
The Regional Studies Association’s Annual Conference 2023 #RSA23 will be our largest knowledge exchange and networking gathering in 2023. It is being held in partnership with the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. This four-day conference brings together academics and policymakers to exchange news, views and research findings from the fields of regional studies and science, regional and economic development, policy and planning. There will be representation from around 50 different global territories as we gather both established experts and early career researchers in the beautiful city of Ljubljana.
As part of the 2023 RSA Annual Conference, there will be a number of Special Sessions running throughout the academic programme. The RSA Ambassador to Switzerland, Hugues Jeannerat is one of the organisers of SS12: From Knowledge-intensive to “Transformative Knowledge Regions”
The Lisbon Agenda, launched by the European Commission in the year 2000, aimed at making Europe “the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” (European Council 2000). It had significant impact on regional development strategies, such as clusters and smart specialisation focused on the promotion of knowledge-intensive sectors, organisations and activities. However, the current social and ecological crises and new policy objectives expressed by the EU Green Deal require considering the role of knowledge in regional development, as well as its dynamics of generation and use within and across places from a critical and renewed perspective. Against this background, the special session strives to renew the understanding of knowledge as an asset in regional development in light of on-going sustainability transitions by exploring the shift from knowledge-intensive to “transformative-knowledge regions”.
While policies related to the Lisbon agenda sought to enhance the intensity of knowledge creation and sharing to foster innovation driven by market competition and selection, the current Green Deal and mission-oriented innovation policies define expected directions for innovation that should actually transform the economy and the society towards more sustainable ways of production, consumption and living. Making knowledge actually transformative implies the conceptualisation and support of a knowledge ecosystem that is not merely about technical solutionism, but also about changes of practices, imaginaries and rationales, subject to democratic and citizen legitimacy as well as of political power or influential denialism. Beyond scientific knowledge, more hands-on, practical and place-based knowledge is needed. This goes along with production and technology issues, but also with the introduction of a social innovation approach, an emphasis on socio-technical and institutional changes and the involvement a broader range of actors such as public bodies, civil society and NGOs.
The session welcomes conceptual and empirical contributions addressing the following research questions:
1) How, where and by whom is knowledge generated in regional sustainability transitions? What are multi-local and multi-scalar characteristics?
2) What are the distinctive regional features of transformative knowledge dynamics and which (new) knowledge conceptualisations would be useful for studying the types of knowledge, learning and communities that are involved in sustainability transitions?
3) What is the role of and contribution of specific industries and sectors such as foundational services and infrastructures (energy, water, communication, schools, welfare) for transformative knowledge creation and broader regional sustainability transitioning?
4) What are the distinctive capacities of the “knowledge ecosystem” driving sustainability transitions in different types of regions (e.g. urban and rural)?
Session Organisers:
Anna Butzin, Westphalian University of Applied Sciences Gelsenkirchen, Institute for Work and Technology (IAT), Germany
Luís Carvalho, University of Porto, Faculty of Economics and Management, Portugal
Hugues Jeannerat, University of Neuchâtel, Institute of Sociology, Switzerland
Jesper Manniche, Centre for Regional and Tourism Research, Denmark
If you would like to submit an abstract to this sessions, or any other special session at the conference, please submit your abstract in the normal way – you will find each session listed in the gateway themes on the abstract submission page.
Past Events
ROREP SwissLAB_2019 conference
ROREP SwissLAB_2019 entitled “Digitisation in spatial planning and regional development” will take place from 5 to 7 September 2019 in Rapperswil. Digitisation disrupts what is familiar to us and has a clear spatial impact. These changes will be examined at ROREP SwissLAB_2019. In addition, the value creation chains modified by digitisation can be”exploited” and the spatial impacts of this – as in the case of the Obersee agglomeration – will be analyzed. To this end, experts from administrations and companies will make informative contributions to the discussion by highlighting the effects of digitisation through the presentation of their own work and suggesting possible solutions.
More information about this conference, including the registration process can be found here.
ROREP SwissLAB_2019 sur “La numérisation dans l’aménagement du territoire et le développement régional” aura lieu du 5 au 7 septembre 2019 à Rapperswil.
La numérisation bouleverse ce qui nous est familier et a un impact spatial évident.
Ces changements sont discutés au ROREP SwissLAB_2019. En outre, les chaînes de création de valeur modifiées pour la numérisation sont “exploitées” et leurs impacts spatiaux – à l’exemple de l’agglomération d’Obersee – sont analysés. A cette fin, des experts des administrations et des entreprises utiliseront des contributions informatives pour en souligner les effets. Ensemble, ils discutent ensuite des solutions possibles et de leur propre travail.