Welcome message from RSA Ambassador to Finland, Markku Sotarauta
Markku Sotarauta is Professor of Regional Development Studies in the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University, Finland. In 2011-2013, he served as the founding Dean of the School of Management and in 2009-2010 as the last Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administration. In 2008 he was appointed as a Visiting Professor in the Newcastle University Business School (UK) for a three year period.
Professor Sotarauta specialises in leadership, innovation systems, and institutional entrepreneurship in city and regional development. He has published widely on these issues in international journals and edited books. His latest publications include ‘Leadership and the city: Power, strategy and networks in the making of knowledge cities‘, published by Routledge. Professor Sotarauta has worked with the Finnish Parliament, many Finnish ministries as well as cities and regions both in Finland and in other countries.
Markku Sotarauta is the RSA Ambassador to Finland and is also the Chair of NORSA: the Nordic Division of the RSA – see here for more information and for details of upcoming and recent Division events.
Past Events
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 was one of our largest knowledge exchange and networking gathering in 2023. It was held in partnership with the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. This four-day conference brought 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.
As part of the 2023 RSA Annual Conference, there were a number of Special Sessions running throughout the academic programme. The RSA Ambassador to Finland, Markku Sotarauta, is one of the organisers of SS33: Regional Industrial Path Development and Restructuring – Assets, Agency, and Policy
Session Description:
Economic downturns, climate change, political instabilities, and other global challenges are placing major transformative pressures on regions, which need to continuously adapt their structures and functions to remain competitive. Regional industrial restructuring has become a central concern among researchers and policy makers interested in regional development. Regional industrial restructuring is typically seen as a process by which local companies diversify into new fields, relying on a new combination of skills, knowledge and other assets accumulated in the past. While early theories have mostly considered firms and their knowledge assets, a lively academic debate has recently emerged around various drivers and mechanisms for new path development, including policy, change agency, public and private demand, institutional and innovative entrepreneurship, local and non-local knowledge linkages, and other types of firm- and system-level assets. The purpose of this special session is to advance our understanding of economic, social, and environmental transformation of regions, by focussing on assets, agency, and policy. We are interested in drivers, hinders, processes and mechanisms for regional industrial restructuring and new path development. We welcome theoretical contribution as well as empirical studies, especially, but not exclusively, from the Nordic territory.
The special session has three main objectives:
(1) to advance existing theories on regional industrial path development, with a particular focus on assets, agency, and policy,
(2) to introduce new methodological approaches to analyse and understand regional path development and structural change, and
(3) to provide empirical evidence on drivers, hinders, processes and mechanisms for regional industrial restructuring in different geographical settings.
This was an open session organised by Nordic Division of the RSA (NoRSA).
Session Organisers:
Roman Martin, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Laura James, Aalborg University, Denmark
Markku Sotarauta, Tampere University, Finland
Marte Cecilie Wilhelmsen Solheim, University of Stavanger, Norway
Martin Henning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden