Minutes of the PRSCO Council Meeting
Date and time: 15:30-17:00, Tuesday July 3rd, 2012
Venue: Renmin University of China
Meeting Place: Room 734, Minde Main Buildinga) Apologies received, roll-call, and confirmation of Section representatives
Present:
BUDIONO (LOC of 23rd PRSC, IRSA, Indonesia)
Anping CHEN (Jinan University, China)
Yoshiro HIGANO (RSAI President, JSRSAI, Japan)
Rui HUANG (East China Normal University)
Peter NIJKAMP (ERSA, Netherland)
Jacques POOT (ANZRSAI, New Zealand & Australia)
Katsuhiro SAKURAI (JSRSAI, Japan)
Hiroyuki SHIBUSAWA (Executive Secretary of PRSCO, JSRSAI, Japan)
Jiuwen SUN (Chairperson of 12th PRSCO SI, China)
Jean-Claude THILL (RSAI Vice President, NARSC/WRSA, USA)
Suminori TOKUNAGA (JSRSAI, Japan)
Zheng WANG (Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Yuyuan WEN (Executive Secretary of 12th PRSCO SI, China)
Jichung YANG (PRSCO President, KRSA, Korea)
Apologies received:
Paul Dalziel, David Edgington, Rachel Franklin, Luis Amando Galvis, Lay Gibson, Eduardo
Haddad, Kingsley Haynes, Fakrul Islam, Sung-Bae Kim, Tschangho John Kim, Fu-Chuan
Lai, John Madden, Edgard Moncayo, Chitta Ranjan Pathak, Aroca Patricio, David Plane,
Budy Resosudarmo, Jorge Serrano, Daigee Shaw, Richard Shearmur, Roger Stough,Takatoshi Tabuchi, Jouke van Dijk
Jacques Poot noted the sad news that Professor John Quigley of UC Berkeley, an outstanding
scholar who had represented WRSA on PRSCO Council for many years, had died on
Saturday May 12, aged 70, after having been ill for some time. Obituaries can be found at for
example http://www.berkeleyside.com/2012/05/16/in-memory-john-quigley-cal-leaderinspirational-mentor/ PRSCO Council observed a minute of silence in memory of JohnQuigley.

b) Minutes of the PRSCO Council Meeting in Miami, Thursday November 10th 2011
These were accepted as a correct record of the meeting.

1c) Report on the organization of the 23rd Pacific Conference of the RSAI, 2013
(Budiono)
Budiono presented the proposal for the 23rd PRSCO conference to be held in Bandung, 2-4 July 2013.
Plenary sessions would be held in the Gedung Merdeka historical building, built in 1895. The firstAsian-African conference was held in this building in 1955. Other sessions would be held in theSavoy Homann hotel (an art deco building of 1939). The deadline for submission of abstracts is 31March 2013. All details of the conference can be found on the website www.prsco2013.org
Budiono mentioned that the conference organisers would use the online conference management
tool www.conftool.net
President Jichung Yang thanked Budiono for the excellent conference planning to date.

d) Nomination of Vice president of the PRSCO
Budy P. Resosudarmo (Indonesian Regional Science Association) has been officiallynominated by the Indonesian Regional Science Association to be the next Vice-President(and President Elect) of PRSCO. This nomination was accepted unanimously.

e) Nomination of PRSCO delegates for the RSAI Councillors-at-large
There are three slots on RSAI Council for PRSCO delegates. At present, these are taken up
by: Yoshiro Higano (2010-2012), Paul Dalziel (2011-2013) and Patricio Aroca (2012-2014).
Besides these councillors, there is also an opportunity for PRSCO to nominate Councillorsat-Large. Such councillors are appointed by means of an election in which members of all
sections can vote. It was proposed that Jichung Yang should be nominated for RSAICouncillor-at-large. Yang accepted the nomination.

f) Establishment of the PRSCO Awards
John Madden, who could not attend the Council meeting, chaired a sub-committee to investigate thisissue. Other sub-committee members are Rachel Franklin, Jouke van Dijk and Hiroyuki Shibusawa.
The sub-committee prepared a short report, which was tabled at the PRSCO meeting. It this report, it
was concluded that the establishment of PRSCO award and prizes is a good idea, but that thePrize/Award money did not have to be large, as the main purpose of the prizes/awards is therecognition of academic excellence and/or service and not the monetary reward. As PRSCO does nothave a separate budget, small prizes/awards should be funded from PRSCO conference revenue. JeanClaude Thill mentioned that it would be important to establish in advance whether papers written by
thesis students jointly with their supervisors would be eligible for a student prize. Jichung Yang asked
about the criteria for the ERSA EIB Prize. Poot noted that this was a substantial prize of 5000 euro
(provided by the European Investment Bank) that was awarded annually to an outstanding European2scholar. The details can be found on the following website: http://www.ersa.org/about/eib-ersaprize/article/eib-ersa-prize-rules
Jean-Claude Thill asked, if a prize was introduced for a conference paper, whether such a paper could
be in the language of the host country (e.g. Mandarin in Beijing). Yoshiro Higano suggested that such
papers should be written English so that they are accessible to all conference participants. It wasagreed that two or three small prizes should be established to be funded from conference revenue andthat the possibilities of a large prize for research excellence should also be investigated (e.g. fundedby the Asian Development Bank). Jichung Yang requested that John Madden and his sub-committee
would table at the next PRSCO Council meeting (at NARSC in Ottawa in November 2012) draft rulesfor these Prizes.

g) Report on the 12th PRSCO SI , 2012
Yuyuan Wen gave a short report about the organisation of the 12th PRSCO Summer Institute.
Preparation had begun immediately after the Seoul conference, with helpful input from the Regional
Science Association of China and from senior people in RSAI. A total of 200 abstracts had been
received and subsequently 98 full papers were published in the Proceedings, which consisted of threebooks, with about 1200 pages in total. The Summer Institute was held at Renmin University, a wellknown university in Beijing, established in 1950. Yoshiro Higano thanked the Local Organizing
Committee for their hard work. This was carried with acclamation.

h) Report on activities of Pacific Rim regional science communities
There was nothing to report.

i) Any further business
Budiono asked for potential themes for the 2013 PRSCO conference in Bandung. Jichung Yangsuggested the widening networks in regional science. Jacques Poot suggested spatial contagion oflarge shocks to the world economy.

Yoshiro Higano asked if the Chinese Regional Science Association was ready to join PRSCO
formally as a Section. Yuyuan Wen replied that this is a complex issue because there aremany organisations in China engaged in regional science. Several members of PRSCO Council
would meet Shouyi Hao, the President of the Regional Science Association of China, later thatevening to consider the way forward. Peter Nijkamp argued that main goals of the collaboration
between PRSCO and the Regional Science Association of China should be to promote participation ofyoung Chinese people in international activities and to strengthen linkages between China and theinternational community. Yoshiro Higano also emphasised that young scholars (who speak English)
should be able to become members of RSAI and that this could be facilitated by China becoming aSection of PRSCO.

3

It was noted that the Editor-in-Chief of Papers in Regional Science, Jouke van Dijk, would bestepping down at the end of 2012 and that there would also be changes to the editorial team.
Expressions of interest for the job of Editor-in-Chief should be received by 30 July 2012.
Jichung Yang closed the meeting at 5 pm.

[Minutes written by Jacques POOT]

4