November 2015
In search of a discipline: envisioning and framing a
regional science roadmap
by Peter Nijkamp

PAGE 03

Meet the Fellows

Gordon Mulligan
PAGE 10

Challenges for Regional Science: institutional
prospects
by Antoine Bailly, Lay James Gibson

PAGE 0Future challenges for Regional Science: scientificprospectsby Roberta Capello

PAGE 09

Regional Science as a radical science innovation
by Ana Maria Bonomi Barufi, Karima Kourtit, Elizabeth Mack,
Peter Nijkamp
PAGE 13

Centres of Regional Science:

The Research Centre for Macroeconomic andRegional Forecasting (PROMAR)
PAGE 162016 World RSAI Congress PAGE 02

together and training young researchers. These two
initiatives are already advertised on the RSAI’s website.
Please take a look at them, paying special attention to thedeadlines. Second, from next year the RSAI will makeseed funds available for the preparation of high­risk
research projects by young researchers. The call will be
advertised at the beginning of 2016. Please continue tomake these initiatives a success.
The RSAI will go on building bridges in order to promoteand sponsor regional science. It is therefore fitting that thenext World Congress will take place in Istanbul, a city at
the crossroads of history, bridging not just Europe andAsia, but also cultures and religions. This will be a uniqueexperience and I very much look forward to seeing andreaching as many of you as possible in such an amazingcity. Your presence in Istanbul will help increase thevisibility of Regional Science across the world.
With best wishes,
Andrés Rodríguez­Pose, London School of Economics(A.Rodriguez­Pose@lse.ac.uk)

1. Introduction to the Special
Issue: the future of Regional
Science1.1. Welcome from the President
by Andrés Rodríguez­Pose
Dear friends and colleagues, readersof the RSAI newsletter,
Welcome to the latest edition of theofficial RSAI newsletter, edited byAndrea Caragliu and Graham Clarke.
This newsletter will probably reach the
majority of you at one of the twoforthcoming large Regional Science congresses. Early in
November NARSC will hold its very successful annual
Congress in Portland, USA, while in April 2016 the 11th
RSAI World Congress will take place in the beautiful city ofIstanbul, Turkey. These two events will bring together thewhole world of regional science and will provide vibrantplatforms for the development, diffusion, and exchange of
new ideas. I wish all congress participants excellent stays
in Portland and Istanbul and would encourage you to use
both conferences not only to take advantage of thescientific highlights and exchanges, but also to build on
your social networking and to benefit from the excellent
opportunities both cities have to offer. For those of you
reading this newsletter online, please check out our future
conferences. The regional science community is poorer
without you and we will all welcome your participation in
the future!
There are some stimulating developments within the RSAI
to report. First, given their success during 2015, the RSAICouncil has recently renewed the two programmes thatwere launched at the beginning of this year: ‘building
bridges’ and ‘nurturing new talent’. ‘Building bridges’ aims
at encouraging the presence of researchers from thoseareas of the world where Regional Science lacks strongorganisational structures at established Regional Science
congresses. ‘Nurturing new talent’ grants support for thepromotion of institutes and workshops aimed at bringing

1.2. Welcome to the 2015 NARSC
Congressby Neil Reid, University of Toledo and Rachel Franklin,
Brown University

Neil Reid
University of Toledo
Executive Director
North American Regional
Science Council(neil.reid@utoledo.edu)

Rachel Franklin
Brown University
NARSC 2015 Program Chair
Executive Director Western
Regional Science Association(Rachel_Franklin@brown.edu)

On behalf of the North American Regional Science Council
and the Western Regional Science Association it gives us
great pleasure to welcome you to Portland, Oregon for the
62nd Annual North American Meetings of the Regional
Science Association International. With more than 650
regional scientists from across the world in attendance­1­these meetings provide an excellent opportunity to learn
about cutting edge research being undertaken by yourcolleagues. The meetings are also about networking andso we hope that you enjoy not only catching up with oldfriends but also making new professional acquaintances.
Hopefully, these conversations during a coffee break, overa drink at the bar, or over dinner will stimulate new ideas
for professional collaborations.
While here please take the opportunity to explore the cityof Portland. Portland is known as the “City of Roses” as its
climate is ideal for growing this particular flower. The city isalso noted for its progressive land use planning andinvestment in a user­friendly public transportation system.
If you happen to be a beer drinker you should also enjoy
the city. Portland has been at the epi­center of America’s
craft beer revolution and is home to over one hundredcraft breweries. So please enjoy the conference and yourvisit to Portland.

unrivalled
beautycomplimented by uniqueharmony of ancient andcontemporary, oriental andoccidental. The city is locatedat the crossroads ofcivilizations and is the only
major city in the world built
across two continents. It
bridges Europe and Asia
geographically and culturally.
The history of the city dates
back 8,000 years, andhaving been the capital forthree successive great
empires, Eastern Roman,
Byzantine, and Ottoman, it
has been a melting point forvarious
culturesandreligions.
The conference promises animpressive venue in theheart of Istanbul, a broad
range of topics pertaining toregional science and regional policy issues and a diverse
audience comprising academics, policy makers andpractitioners from around the world. We aim to organize ahigh quality conference that is academically rigorous,
professionally relevant and socially entertaining. We thus
aim to make this congress a memorable and rewarding
experience for all participants.
The participants will have the opportunity of taking pre­and post­congress tours to Aegean and Central Anatolian
RegionsofTurkey.
On
the
web
page
www.2016worldcongress.regionalscience.org, we provide
lots of information about the venue, means oftransportation and the city itself. We are looking forward toseeing you in Istanbul to enjoy the famous Turkish
hospitality.
With warmest regards,
Tüzin Baycan

1.3. Welcome to the 2016 World RSAI
Congress
by Tüzin Baycan, Istanbul Technical University ­ Chair of
the LOC (tbaycan@itu.edu.tr)
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
The 11th World Congress of theRegional
Science Association
International (RSAI) will be held from
April 25­28, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Turkish Regional Science
Association will host the congress,
and we expect the congress to attract hundreds ofparticipants from the fields of economics, geography,
planning and public policy, from different parts of theworld.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the 11th World
Congress of the RSAI, I have the honour and pleasure to
invite you to Istanbul where the two continents of Europe
and Asia meet.
Istanbul is one of the most magical and enchanting cities
and is a UNESCO World heritage site. It is endowed with­2­

Constantin, describes the PROMAR research unit at
Bucharest University of Economic Studies.
We believe the challenges that lie ahead of Regional
Science should be addressed, with the aim to provide new
insights into how space influences our everyday activities.
We also do hope this Special Issue will offer a usefulperspective on how to deal more effectively with them.
We wish you a pleasant and entertaining read, and if you
have any comments or suggestions do let us know by e­
mailtoandrea.caragliu@polimi.it
and/or
G.P.Clarke@leeds.ac.uk

1.4. Welcome from the Editors
by Andrea Caragliu (andrea.caragliu@polimi.it) andGraham Clarke (G.P.Clarke@leeds.ac.uk)

Andrea Caragliu
Graham Clarke
We are pleased to welcome you to the Autumn 2015 issueof the RSAI Newsletter. The first Congress of our
Association was held in 1954. It is safe to say that, since
the discipline has turned 60, it is an appropriate time torevisit where we are, and where we are heading. Major
policy and academic challenges lie ahead as are
discussed by many colleagues below. We begin with Peter
Nijkamp, who challenges our vision of Regional Science
as a coherent and independent discipline; his article
suggests that course curricula need to be updated with thelatest advancements in Regional Science, which, as also
witnessed by previous Newsletter issues, develops at avery fast rate.
Institutional perspectives on the future of our discipline arepresented by Antoine Bailly and Lay James Gibson; intheir article they provide a wealth of suggestions for further
developing our discipline both in the academic world aswell as in the policymaking arena; Roberta Capello thenoffers her insight into some of the main research issues
that need to be tackled by Regional Scientists over the
next years.
After a fun and interesting interlude, where Gordon
Mulligan describes his career’s highlights in the usual“Meet the Fellows” column, we get back to the topic of thisSpecial issue with Ana Maria Bonomi Barufi, Karima
Kourtit, Elizabeth Mack, and Peter Nijkamp, who talk us
through the proposal for a Regional Science Academy totackle the challenges lying ahead of our discipline.
Finally, for the usual “Centres of Regional Science”
column, we travel to Bucharest, where our host, Daniela

2. In search of a discipline:
envisioning
andframingaregional science roadmap
by Peter Nijkamp,(p.nijkamp@vu.nl)

Free

University Amsterdam

More than 50 years ago, the founding
father of Ekistics, Doxiadis, wrote thefollowing historical words which have not
yet lost a single piece of actuality: “Wecome from different nations, fromdifferent cultural backgrounds. Our politics differ, ourprofessions are various. But we believe that the problemof human settlements is a general and fundamental
problem in our new dynamic world and that it must be
viewed and studied in such a way that it will, in common
with all great scientific disciplines, transcend our local
differences” (Newsletter Ekistics Association, Delos
Symposium Declaration, 1963, p. 22). This statement saw
its light in the early days of regional science, but shows a
missionary drive that is comparable to the first publicationsof the late Walter Isard in the 1950s, which heralded thebirth of regional science.
Regional science is usually conceived of as an organizedmultidisciplinary endeavour to study and understand theregional (including urban, rural and transportation)
dimensions of the space economy and to shape a rational
scientific foundation for regional policy. Right from theoutset in the 1950s, the question was raised as to whether­3­regional science would have to be regarded as a distinct
scientific discipline – with its own distinct subject matterincluding an appropriate theoretical and methodologicalframework ­ , or as an amalgam bringing together ideas,
concepts, theoretical frameworks, methodologies andapplication domains from a variety of existing disciplinesthat are addressing the spatial or geographical aspects ofour earth, such as economic and social geography,
demography,
regional
andurban
economics,
transportation economics, political science, land­use
planning, urban
architecture, rural sociology,
environmental science etc. Even the appropriateness andvalidity of the name ‘regional science’ has sometimes
been questioned. Also until today, the name ‘spatial
science(s)’ has also been used as a label.
Clearly, despite many efforts and heated debates, thecherished ideal of many colleagues for regional science tobe a recognized discipline adopted by major universities in
the world has never materialized. For some of us, thisobservation may sound disappointing. But at the sametime the good news is that world­wide we can observe
many curricula in regional science, sometimes
accompanied and supported by centres, institutes ordepartments of regional science. Furthermore, we witness
the existence and emergence of many complementary
educational and institutional initiatives, such as in urban
and regional planning, urban and regional economics,
land­use policy, and so forth. As long as such initiatives
are intellectually powerful enough and driven by an open
mind to get to grips with the complexity of the modern
space economy, one may expect that through ‘bonding
and bridging’ of various disciplinary approaches a regional
science family will (continue to) exist that acts as a support
mechanism and an intellectual umbrella for the spatial
sciences in a broad sense.
A broad analysis framework for regional science is indeed
pertinent, as it does not only incorporate many disciplinary
approaches, but also has seen an extension of its scopeand coverage. I offer here a few examples:• A shift from tangible spatial interactions (e.g., people,
goods) to intangible and cognitive interwovenness (e.g.,ideas, information, big data), which has prompted theemergence of new types of proximity analysis (witness thepath­breaking research of Andre Torre).
• The re­interpretation of the scientific and mental map of
the space­economy, through the awareness of fast andslow spatial dynamic processes, including the emergenceof catastrophe, chaos and resilience theory (witness thefundamental works of Aura Reggiani) or the rising
popularity of evolutionary geography (inspired by theseminal contributions of Ron Boschma).
• The increasing recognition of interdependent micro­
meso­macro processes in complex spatial systems, whichhave led to advanced innovative studies on spatial
statistics and econometrics (aswitnessed in thefundamental research by Manfred Fischer, Arthur Getis
and others), a development which forces regional science
to be even more open­minded than it already is.
Meanwhile, regional science educational programmes andcurricula are faced with ever increasing demands on thecontents and specification of master and Ph.D. courses. Is
there a single and unambiguous recipe to give an
undisputed and recognized quality to a regional science
course? This question becomes even more relevant, sincein the past years – as part of a rational quality control andaccreditation process of universities, faculties anddepartments all over the world ­ the claims on scientificcurricula have significantly risen, to the extent that invarious universities there is no place anymore for a non­officially accredited and tested curriculum. It is therefore,
pertinent that regional scientists – and in a broader context
spatial scientists ­ join hands in formulating testable
criteria for assessing courses and curricula in the domainof regional science. Whether such a course is coined
regional science, urban or regional planning, or spatial
economics seems to me less relevant at this moment. It isa matter of survival for regional scientists to roll up theirsleeves and share responsibility in formulating what is to
expected by clients from the intellectual baggage of thenext generation of regional scientists. This missionary task
does not only apply to the ‘old’ heartlands of regional
science, but also to emerging and developing economics.

­4­

when it came to spreading the gospel of regional science.
Progress in making regional science a fixture on
academic, civic, and corporate landscapes has been
mixed. On the bright side we have seen growth in thenumber and quality of regional science associations andgrowth in their membership. We have also seen growth in
the number of regional science scientific journals, in thenumber of pages that they publish and in the number anddiversity of citations that they generate. On the downside
we have already noted the scarcity of academic
departments and the paucity of academic, corporate, orgovernmental job titles that carry the words "regional
scientist" or something of the sort.
We do not think that all is lost but we do think that weneed to renew the conversation on how we should move
forward to secure regional science's place as a scientificfield or, even, as a core discipline.
To revive this discussion we published a paper titled"Securing the Future of Regional Science; Conditions for aCore Discipline." (Studies in Regional Science, 2015,
forthcoming). In this paper we present 14 items that we
think will help secure the future of regional science and weoffer five recommendations that might serve as aframework for future initiatives.
Specifically we would like to see workshop­type sessionsorganized at future conferences to consider these generalrecommendations and to develop appropriate actionplans. The first of our recommendations could benefit fromthe formation of a new RSAI Education Committee.
Recommendations 2­5 could be the focus of an RSAI
Marketing Committee.
Each committee might have 2­3 senior scholars, perhaps
from the Long Range Planning Committee, and 2­3 mid­career scholars who show promise for joining RSAI's
leadership ranks.
1.) Design Instructional Courses
The proliferation of courses at the undergraduate andgraduate levels will broaden awareness of the regional
science "brand" and will build appreciation for regional
science as a useful applied field.
Ideally, perhaps, the introductory course would be aimed

I wish to add that the above mentioned strategic tasks
deserve full­scale attention by the worldwide regional
science community. It is also noteworthy that such ideas
are explicitly recognized as belonging to the remit of theRegional Science Academy, a novel initiative that aims toserve as a wake­up call for spatial scientists in order todevelop forward­looking ideas on theory, methodology,
education, smart cooperation and science­policy
interactions in regional science.

3.
Challenges
forRegional
Science: institutional prospects
by Antoine
Bailly,Universityof(antoine.bailly@unige.ch) and Lay James
UniversityofArizona,Tucson,(ljgibson@comcast.net)

GenevaGibson,USA

We are cautiously optimisticthat regional scientists will
focus on appropriate topics
including cutting edge ones
but other changes such as
those proposed here will probably be painfully slow in
coming. Our concerns are with the institutional frameworks
that support regional science.
When regional science is found in universities it is likely to
be a program within a formal department but not an entitywith its own budget or with a dedicated faculty. The sameis true of regional science in industry or government. Verycompetent regional scientists may be found in thesesettings but their titles rarely if ever contain the words"regional science." Nor do the units to which they are
assigned.
This is not to suggest that regional science performs
poorly but it does suggest that regional science might be a
fragile enterprise and one with limited prospects. What apity!!
We have been concerned with the prospects of regional
science as a generally recognized "brand" since at least
the mid­1990s. Others have shared our concern. The
founder of regional science, Walter Isard was tireless­5­

at first­year students but the lack of regional science
departments makes it more likely that the introductory
course will be offered as an elective by departments ofeconomics, planning, or geography and that it will be
aimed at more advanced undergraduates. In a perfectworld there would be a second, more advanced course, tobetter prepare students for graduate study in regional
science.
2.) Make Recognition of Regional Science Explicit
It is essential to make recognition of regional science andthe work of regional scientists explicit, not just implicit, partof the instructional package. Regional science per seneeds to be recognized for its leadership in the search forsolutions to significant research problems.
3.) Develop Networks
By strengthening existing networks and building new ones
regional scientists will have expanded access to, andmore regular contact with, professional planners,
consultancies, government agencies, and the private
research sector. Improved access to the research staff
and management and administration of such organizations
and agencies should result in expanded opportunities forregional scientists.
4.) Create an Academic Culture that Values ExtramuralFundingCuriosity driven research will always be valued but client
driven research carries with it the fact that its value ismore explicitly recognized. And it provides expanded
opportunities for research scientists.
The most
sustainable academic enterprises are those which forge
appropriate partnerships with government agencies,
private firms, GSEs, and NGOs.
5.) Be Aggressive in Cultivating the MediaThe media can encourage public awareness andrecognition of the contributions of regional scientists tosolving problems facing government, private firms, GSEs,
and NGOs. And we must also be aware that media
pressure can be helpful when it comes to building new
departments and to attracting students and researchfunding. The media can help build the image of regional
science and build the regional science brand.

4. News from the RSAI
4.1. Book series Advances in Spatial
Science: Call for book proposals
On the occasion of the 20th anniversaryof the book series Advances in Spatial
Science, we would like to invite scholars
in the fields of regional and spatial
science to submit book proposals forconsideration in the series.
This series contains scientific studies focusing on spatial
phenomena, utilising theoretical frameworks, analyticalmethods, and empirical procedures specifically designed
for spatial analysis. Advances in Spatial Science brings
together innovative spatial research utilising concepts,
perspectives, and methods relevant to both basic scienceand policy making. The aim is to present advances inspatial science to an informed readership in universities,
research organisations, and policy­making institutions
throughout the world.
Over the last two decades, the series has published asteady flow of four books per year contributed by some of
the best known and most influential regional scientists
from around the world. In 2015 alone, the books in thisseries have had more than 70.000 digital downloads on
Springerlink.com. It has become a lighthouse of thought
and the most comprehensive collection of published booksin the field.
The book series publishes monographs and contributed
volumes of theoretical and applied research in Regionaland Spatial Science, as well as edited handbooks
covering fundamental research. The series encourages
new volumes on innovative theories and methods in
Regional Science, and also edited books from speciallyorganized research seminars and workshops.
For more information on the series please visit:
http://www.springer.com/series/3302
If you want to submit a book proposal please contact:
Hans Westlund (Hans.Westlund@abe.kth.se) or Jean­Claude Thill (Jean­Claude.Thill@uncc.edu).

­6­

based urban planners
on the other hand was
explored.
Lecturers came from
Austria(Christoph
Schremmer, Verena
Madner,Philipp
Kaufmann, Gunther Maier) and from abroad (PaulCheshire, Daniel Czamanski) and they covered various
aspects of the summer school program. Theoreticalpresentations and discussions were complemented by aseries of visits to development sites in Vienna withpresentations by, and discussions with, representatives ofdevelopers, investors, and planning authorities. The sites
visited covered a range of characteristics from establishedto very new, private or public initiatives, central or
peripheral in the city, moderately sized to large.
The highlight of the social program was a trip to the
Wachau. There, participants also visited the monastery ofMelk, the picturesque village of Dürnstein, and ended the
day at a traditional wine tavern.

Sincerely,
Manfred M. Fischer, Jean­Claude Thill, Jouke van Dijk,
and Hans Westlund
Series Editors Advances in Spatial Science

4.2. 2016 ERSA Summer School
The European Regional Science Association is pleased toannounce, in collaboration with RSAI, AISRe and thePolitecnico di Milano, the opportunity for Ph.D. students toparticipate in the 29th ERSA Summer School which will beheld from the 3rd July to 10th July, 2016 in Milan, Italy, at
the Politecnico di Milano.
The theme is “Space, Territory and Growth. Advances inRegional Science”.
The aim of the Summer
School is to provide Ph.D.
students with the most
updated advances inRegional Science fromboththeoreticalandmethodological points of view.
Lectures will be given by internationally recognizedscientists in the field. Participants will also be given thepossibility to present their own Ph.D. work, provided that
this is sufficiently advanced to be presented and to get
useful feedback.
More information can be found on the ERSA web site:
http://www.ersa.org/events/summer­schools/2016­
summer­school/

4.3. 2015 ERSA Summer School

4.4. 2015 ERSA Congress – Lisbon

The 28th ERSA summer school held in 2015 wasorganized jointly with the European Real Estate Society(ERES) between July 5th and July 14th at WU in Vienna,
Austria. Fifteen students from all over the world attended
the program entitled “Developers, Planners, and the City”.
In a series of lectures, site visits, and student
presentations the relationship between profit­oriented realestate developers on the one hand, and public sector

The European Regional Science Association Congressthat took place in Lisbon in August 2015 registered a great
attendance with 852 participants from 46 countries aroundthe world. According to the survey filled in by 40% of theparticipants the quality of the logistics and the content of
the plenary and parallel sessions were very good and theparticipation in the plenary sessions, although with lessparticipation, filled the main rooms available.

­7­4.5. Invited plenary address by Bob
Stimson at the annual ANZRSAI
congress
The Australia and New Zealand Regional
Science
Association
International(ANZRSAI) annual conference will be held
in Sydney in December 2015. A highlight ofthe conference will be an invited plenary
address by Professor Bob Stimson following
his retirement in July after 50 years of distinguishedresearch. His topic will be “Challenges and Opportunities
for Regional Science Research to be More Policy
Relevant”.
Bob Stimson continues to be an Honorary Professor of
Geography at the University of Melbourne and an
Emeritus Professor in Geography at the University of
Queensland. He is a past President of the Regional
Science Association International, an elected Fellow of
RSAI and the sixth recipient of the prestigious Hirotado
Kohno Award presented by RSAI for outstanding service
to the regional science community.

Key Facts
828 Presentations; 177 Parallel sessions; 65 Topics; 3Plenary sessions (including Parliament session (Sciencevs Policy)); 3 Semi­Plenary Sessions (OECD Session and2 round tables: EIB and Espon/ERC/ Bank of Portugal); 2
Technical Visits; 4 Publishers and 5 Prizes.

4.6.
RSAI/ERSA
2015
Barcelona
Workshop on Regional and Urban
Economics: Spatial Perspectives of
Human Capital

Parliament Session
With Corina Cretu, European Commissioner for Regional Policy

The “RSAI/ERSA 2015 Barcelona Workshop on Regionaland Urban Economics: Spatial Perspectives of Human
Capital” will be held in Barcelona on November 26th­27th
2015 (http://www.ub.edu/aqr/anterior/workshop2015/?RSAI%2F
ERSA_2015_BARCELONA_WORKSHOP_ON_REGIONAL_AN
D%0AURBAN_ECONOMICS). The AQR­IREA ResearchMartin Beckmann RSAI Award 2015
Johan Klaesson, Martin Andersson and Johan P Larsson
awarded for the best paper published in Papers in Regional
Science in 2014, Volume 94, Issue 4Group of the University of Barcelona is in charge of theworkshop’s organization, with the support of the Regional
Science Association International (RSAI) and theEuropean Regional Science Association (ERSA).
The workshop will be focused on Spatial Perspectives on
Human Capital. Its aim is to bring together researchers inurban and regional economics, as well as in other­8­then, we have all contributed a great deal to thedevelopment of our scientific field. We have worked indifferent directions, but the most fascinating one is in myopinion the increasingly complex and intriguing ways inwhich economic growth models treat space. The simple(and in certain respects trivial) interpretation of space as
uniform­abstract and straightforwardly relatable toadministrative units – a space conceived as internallyhomogeneous and uniform, and which can therefore besynthesised into a vector of aggregate socio­economic­
demographic features – has in recent years been replaced
by a notion of diversified­relational space which restores totheories of regional development some of the founding
principles of location theory: i.e. agglomeration economies
and spatial interaction.
After sixty years, the major mistake we could make is toclaim that we have nothing new to work on. Retrospective
analyses are satisfactory, but prospective views are evenmore interesting to be explored. Each of us has for surehis/her research agenda, rich in fertile ideas waiting to be
developed, enriched by the recent provocative idea Peter
Nijkamp launched to our international scientific community,
i.e. that Regional Science requires a new scientificparadigm to avoid entropic death.
I do not know if Peter is right or not, but I feel that we still
have much to do. In the new edition of my “Regional
Economics” textbook, I envisage important futurechallenges ahead of us.
The most urgent one, in my opinion, relates to the need tomerge macroeconomic elements with local ones inregional growth models. Modern theories of local
development have stressed (with evidence) that regional
development trajectories today depend on endogenous
elements, and it is on these elements that regional
competitiveness relies. However, in the period of crisis as
the one we have just gone through, we have discoveredthat our theoretical toolbox in regional growth modelling
has not been able to interpret the spatial effects of thecrisis. In a period of economic downturn, we all becameaware that one cannot ignore macroeconomic, aggregate
demand elements, since these decisively influence theinterrelated disciplines such as labour and education
economics, who are working in topics where the broadconcept of human capital and its interrelations with spaceplay a fundamental role.
The schedule is quite
exciting: twelve papers by
researchers from several
countries will be presented
over two days, which will becomplemented by a keynote
lecture by Stephen Gibbons(Department of Geography
and Environment, SERC
and CEP, LSE), who willcontribute to the workshop
with his worldwide recognized expertise on the topic.
AQR­IREA charges no fees for attending the workshop
and covers accommodation and travel costs for all thepresenters of accepted papers. This year, among thepresenters, we have the pleasure to host up to six PhD
students from different European Institutions, who will beable to present and discuss their works with seniorresearchers in the field. This has been possible thanks to
the financial support of the RSAI’s “Nurturing New Talent”
initiative, which is specifically aimed at fostering
participation of talented young researchers in international
scientific meetings.
You are all invited to attend the “RSAI/ERSA 2015
Barcelona Workshop on Regional and Urban Economics:
Spatial Perspectives of Human Capital”!

5. Future challenges for Regional
Science: scientific prospectse
by Roberta Capello, ABC Department, Politecnico di
Milano (roberta.capello@polimi.it)
More than sixty years have passed
since the publication of the volume“Location and Space”, by Walter
Isard. This book marked the
beginning of Regional Science. Since­9­destinies of the single national economies and theirregions. Conditions of public debt and deficit, deflation,
country reliability, trends in public and private consumption
and investment determine a country’s growth trajectories,
and of all regions belonging to that country.
New growth theories have made commendable efforts toinclude space in strictly economic models. Also to becommended is the implicit merging in its theoreticalstructure of the various conceptions of space put forward
over the years: the merging, that is, of the physical­metricspace represented by transport costs with the diversified
space which assumes the hypothesis of the existence of
certain territorial polarities where growth cumulates.
However, this approach is still unable to combine themacro­economic laws and mechanisms that explain
growth with territorial factors springing from the intrinsic
relationality present at the local level. An approach that did
so would represent the maximum cross­fertilization amonglocation theory, development theory and macroeconomic
growth theory; a synthesis which would bring out the
territorial micro­foundations of macroeconomic growthmodels.
What is still needed, therefore, is a convincing macro­economic model which comprises the micro­territorial,
micro­behavioural and intangible elements of thedevelopment process. This is not a simple step forward.
Required for this purpose is the definition of patterns,
indicators, and analytical solutions to be incorporated into
formalized models necessarily more abstract and synthetic
in terms of their explanatory variables. A step in thisdirection can start from quantitative sociology thatembraces the paradigm of methodological individualism
and seeks to ‘measure’ the social capital of local
communities. All this calls for the identification of territorial
specificities within a macroeconomic model. Or, in otherwords, it calls for the identification of the territorial micro­
foundations of macroeconomic growth models. This is thechallenge facing regional economists in the years to come.

6. MeetMulligantheFellows:

Gordonby Gordon Mulligan
Imagine if you can an Allan
Sillitoe novel set on a Norwegian
fjord and you might have someidea about my childhood years. I
was raised in a company mill
town on the west coast of
Canada where, until the late
1950s, marine transportation was
the sole means of reaching theoutside world. In many ways, Enjoying his retirement
though, this isolated community party in Sedona at the
WRSA (2010)
was a socialist utopia—workers
earned the same wages, families paid the same rents,
crime did not exist, and social capital was very high. All
this radically changed when both a railway and a highway
were completed to Vancouver. Soon thereafter thecommunity experienced a lot of turnover and the town site
was eventually closed down—then all families moved
elsewhere and workers had to commute. This disruption
was much more drastic than what William Garrison and
Brian Berry had recently chronicled in nearby Marysville,
Washington, where that community’s social and businessfabric was severely strained by the new Interstate highway
system.
I started classes at the University of British Columbia inthe mid­1960s and I enjoyed the student lifestyle so muchthat I remained at UBC for a decade. This was the mostcarefree period of my life—my studies were well supportedby the government, I lived in vibrant neighborhoods likebohemian Kitsilano Beach, I often cycled to school, I reada lot of Dostoevsky and Pynchon, I became very
interested in film noir, and I made numerous friendshipsthat have lasted a lifetime. My undergraduate studies were
mostly devoted to mathematics where I was exposed tomost aspects of the discipline. Later, in graduate school, I
specialized in human geography and economics but
dabbled in several other disciplines. During graduate­ 10 ­

school I also spent many evenings imbibing at the Cecil
hotel, a pub whose regulars included left­leaning university
faculty, union leaders, and the founders of Greenpeace.
My first university course in geography focused on
Europe’s regions and I can recall writing a historicalaccount of the continent’s shifting iron and steel industry.
While researching for this paper I encountered Weber’s
least­cost analysis and also came to appreciate howtransportation improvements can significantly change land
uses and entire patterns of industry. The following year,
my first in graduate school, I took a series of informative
courses on regional analysis, urban geography, andeconomic development. It was all very exciting and, for the
first time, I was carefully reading journals instead of getting
original ideas filtered through textbooks. My MA thesis,
which combined some analysis with a lengthy literature
review, addressed city­size distributions—separate
chapters were devoted to central place theory, stochastic
processes, historical studies, and issues related toprimacy. I find it interesting that this has become such a
hot topic in regional science during the past fifteen years
or so.
While studying for my PhD I was given a lot of freedom
and, as a consequence, I made a number of false starts
on a dissertation. In fact, I still have notes from thisexperimental period and have revisited some of the half­
baked ideas I formulated about location theory at thattime. Eventually, though, I focused again on central place
theory and wrote a somewhat unremarkable treatise on
structure and process in Christaller’s system. Martin
Beckmann was my external examiner and he was very
generous in his evaluation.
Throughout this period Ken Denike served as my advisor
and much of my thinking was influenced by what Ken had
already learned from people like Walter Isard and William
Alonso at the University of Pennsylvania. Curt Eaton also
served on my committee and his perspectives on agent
behavior continue to influence how I view decision­making
problems that involve space or location. Clearly one of thehighlights of this period was meeting John Parr and he,Ken, and I wrote a paper that was published in the mid­

1970s addressingtherelationshipbetween a city’s
population size andthe formation of its
economic base.
After leaving UBC,
where I had been Having lunch in Squamish with past
far too long, I was WRSA president Warren Gill (2010)very fortunate to get visiting positions, first at the
University of Washington and then at Queen’s University. I
had many lunches with Dick Morrill in Seattle and hemanaged to dispel much of my skepticism about the valueof government policy, at least with regard to locating public
facilities. Maurice Yeates in Kingston made me think a lot
more about rent theory, and perhaps I should haveaccepted his advice (and data) to study how newtransportation investments were reshaping the land value
surface of Toronto. Later in my career I accepted othervisiting positions, in North America and Australia, andalways found these very productive times given the
reduction in paperwork and committee assignments.
By the late­1970s I was looking for a more permanent
residence. I had been talking a lot with Michael Dacey in
Geography at Northwestern University and was very
fortunate to avoid the personnel fiasco that was justbrewing there. Instead I moved to the University of Arizona
in Tucson, which in many ways turned out to be a very
good choice. At that time both Geography and Economics
were located in the Business College so the Geography
faculty received a lot of exposure to undergraduates who
were interested in either real estate or local development.
We also encountered students who were keen on entering
the university’s graduate Planning program, where theywould be greeted by Penn graduate Art Silvers. Even
though the department was eventually moved to anothercollege, we slowly put together a very solid program in
Regional Development that attracted up to 300 majors per
year and produced some of most distinguishedundergraduates across the entire university. Unfortunately,
though, departmental politics trumped this success story­ 11 ­

and several of my colleagues eventually left in frustration
over the department’s new direction.
While I was finishing up a number of papers on
multipurpose shopping and central place populations I
became intrigued by the work being done on small towns
by several of my colleagues, including Lay Gibson. Muchof this was applied research, funded by the Arizona
government, and involved the collection of employment
data in the field. Here the economic bases of many towns
in the US Southwest were summarized in a series ofmonographs that were published over a twenty­year
period. I thought the results could be usefully generalized
by collapsing the results into one data set and this led to
my work on estimating small­area economic basemultipliers. Once micropolitan places were recognized by
the U.S. Census Bureau in the 1990s I was able to use
this earlier work to establish another shortcut method for
estimating multipliers in towns and less populous counties.
One of the most important contributions here was showing
how non­earnings income and other factors, including theincidence of natural amenities, can affect both the sizeand job composition of those multipliers.
While at Arizona, which I eventually left in 2006, I wasfortunate to supervise some very good graduate students,
but had special relationships with Timothy Fik andAlexander Vias. Tim’s enthusiasm for all problems
involving geographic clustering and spatial contiguity was
infectious and he was largely responsible for my rethinkingof various analytical matters, including how conjecturalvariations might affect both price and location in spatialcompetition models. We enjoyed a good division of labor
where one of us would design the mathematical models
while the other would write programs for the numericalsolutions. Alternatively, Alex’s interests were along thelines of rural economic development and we became very
interested in unpacking “chicken or egg” issues, especiallytrying to detect whether population growth was leading or
lagging employment growth across the American West.
This demo­economic work was nicely informed by theinsightful ideas on interregional compensating differentials
that had been pioneered by other regional scientists.

Productive relationships were also formed with manyothers, including Meagan Cahill, who worked on urban
crime; Sang­Yool Lee, who studied the role of uncertainty
in agriculture; and Chris Bitter, whose remains interested
in all aspects of housing. I particularly enjoyed working
with those graduate students whose interests did notcoincide with my own
as they challenged me
to read new literaturesand grasp different
methodologies.
Dave Plane joined us
at Arizona in the early
1980s and we later co­ Hiking with Dave Boyce and Curt
edited the Journal of Eaton in Glacier Park; photo by Jay
Allen (2011)
Regional Science fornearly a decade. Even though Dave and I both enjoyedsome prior editorial experience, we were a little anxious
when we assumed this responsibility because Ron Miller
had done such an exceptional job with the journal at Penn.
Dave is one of the most organized scholars around andwe soon agreed to meet once a week to keep on top of
the steady flow of submissions and reviews. I like to think
we broadened the audience of the journal although wewere never in favor of publishing special issues, a trendthat seems so popular today. It is not common knowledge
that the JRS was once owned by the Regional Science
Research Corporation and that it was during our tenurethat all production matters were transferred to Blackwell.
Basically Ben Stevens was the RSRC and I can still recall
the lengthy (and expensive) telephone discussions
between Ben and myself—where he talked and I
listened—that addressed the journal’s direction, impact,
and readership.
Over
the
years
severalotherwell­known
people—including Adrian Esparza, Brigitte Waldorf, andJohn Carruthers—joined our core group at Arizona so that,during the 1990s, we had a very strong regional science
program. My exposure to John proved to be especiallyfruitful as we went on to do a number of projects together
after we had both left Arizona for other climes. Our earliest­ 12 ­

interactions led me to reconsider the issue of amenity
valuation and this topic has remained on my active list
ever since. John also persuaded me of the great
importance of land­use issues, whose neglect has serious
implications for quality of life in both metropolitan andnonmetropolitan settings.
Without doubt the two highlights of my academic career
were my regional science retirement party and my Fellows
selection. In conjunction with the 2010 meetings of theWestern Regional Science Association, John Carruthers
arranged a sumptuous dinner in the Sedona hills thatbrought together a large international crowd of friends andwell wishers. The highlights included some dubious stories
by Bob Stimson and a clever roasting of myaccomplishments by Kingsley Haynes—both close friends
and past RSAI presidents. Using some of the diverse
papers that were given at that meeting, a special issue ofthe Annals of Regional Science was then dedicated in myhonor. I have mixed emotions when I think back on thisspecial occasion because two of the participants, whowere especially good friends, passed away soon
thereafter. Being notified of my Fellows selection later thatyear was an equally satisfying event. Now, though, I
sought something a bit more intimate so I requested thatthe award ceremony be delayed until the summer of 2011
when I would be hiking with friends in Glacier Park. This
prestigious RSAI award was presented to me by DaveBoyce on a lovely day at a lodge overlooking Swiftcurrent
Lake and the event was photographed by Curt Eaton, who
had served on my PhD committee so many years earlier.
These days I’m living in Squamish, British Columbia, fivemiles from where I started, where I stay active hiking in thesummer months and curling during the winter. I still remain
involved in research and continue to enjoy working withyounger regional scientists on a variety of different topics.
In fact I believe I have now published with more than 40
co­authors over the years. Many of these people havebeen students of mine—either undergraduate or
graduate—and that has been one of the most satisfying
aspects of my career. I try to make it out to one or two
regional science conferences each year but generally

restrict myself to those having fewer participants, like the
British­Irish meetings. On the other hand it is encouraging
to see so many younger people at the larger meetings,
including the WRSA where former Arizona student RachelFranklin has been active in recruitment. So if you happen
to spot me at one of those meetings please feel
comfortable about coming up and introducing yourself.

7. Regional Science as a radical
science innovation

Ana Maria
Bonomi Barufi1

Karima Kourtit2

Elizabeth Mack3

Peter Nijkamp4

In the past months various discussions among spatial
scientists have taken place on the idea to create a
Regional Science Academy. The Regional Science
Academy is meant to be an independent network ofrecognized scholars in Regional Science who seek tostudy and to promote sustainable regional development
around the world through innovative and forward­looking
initiatives and intellectual contributions to scientificresearch and higher education in the spatial sciences. Its
mission is to enhance awareness and to stimulate
multidisciplinary and translational research in Regional
Science, addressing both local and global challenges, with
the involvement of parties from both the science andpolicy communities.
The concept of the Regional Science Academy was
inspired by various brainstorm meetings with both juniorand senior scholars in Regional Science, who felt that time
had come for a radical innovation in the field, in terms of
Department of Economics, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil,
ana.barufi@gmail.com
2 KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden; A. Mickiewicz
University, Poznan, Poland, karima.kourtit@abe.kth.se
3 4909 W. Joshua Blvd. Unit #119, Chandler, AZ 85226, Arizona State
University, USA, eamack1@asu.edu
4 VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands; A.Mickiewicz University,
Poznan, Poland, p.nijkamp@vu.nl
1­ 13 ­

both theory/methodology and new mindsets, as well as ofa harmonization and certified upgrading of Regional
Science curricula worldwide. In other words, a new modus
operandi of Regional Science would be needed. The
Regional Science Academy is a strategic spatial
knowledge catalyst: it acts as a global intellectual
powerhouse for new knowledge network initiatives andscholarly views on regions and cities as vital centerpieces
of interconnected spatial systems all over the world.
The strategic roles of the Regional Science Academy
would be as follows:• Find new (and possibly revolutionary) directions ofresearch, rank research priorities and propose guidelines
for novel future research;• Act as a scholarly and dynamic think­tank for all scholars
in the spatial sciences;• Review critically whether prevailing concepts andmethodologies in Regional Science are still valid forunderstanding current and emerging issues, which often
represent new application contexts;• Become an effective vehicle for the birth of new policy
initiatives in Regional Science and to explore newtheorectical and practical realities using new analyticalframeworks;• Bring practitioners and researchers closer by leveraging
common needs and questions that also result in thedevelopment of novel analytical strategies.
The Regional Science Academy should ensure theinjection of new blood into Regional Science, by
broadening its frontiers and focussing on new horizons(both widening and deepening). It should also be relatively
independent of other organizations, such as the RSAI, yetwork cooperatively with them at the same time. Clearly, it
should avoid repeating pre­existing activities andpractices.
In the light of the previous ideas and ambitions, there is aneed for appropriate new techniques, methods andtheories that can address and better explain the dynamic
nature of the real world. The Regional Science Academy
would act as a vital vehicle for the birth of new concepts inthe spatial sciences, especially if this initiative could alsoreach out to ‘new’ places (e.g. Africa), where new realities
will likely result in new scientific challenges. The Regional
Science Academy has the mission of translating andsharing regional research in different environments, and ofbeing open to, and fostering openness amongst, all spatial
scientists, while reducing its proximity to other disciplines.
Moreover, it will also engage practitioners and researchers
by focusing on new needs and soliciting urgent questions
in need of new analytical support.
The Regional Science Academy would be active on fourdomains: a think­tank function, curriculum development,
information and data warehousing, and general service
provision to spatial scientists.
Think­Tank
On the ‘think­tank’ role of the Regional Science Academy,a series of challenging and intriguing scientific issues
ought to be put in perspective, such as:• What is the relevant concept of space in the context ofboth global and local human mobility and regional andurban development?
• Why are transformative changes (i.e. population ageing)
path dependent instead of an intrinsic function of theregional environment? For example, what are the spatial­
economic impacts of the ageing process?
• How does climate change affect the physicalenvironment, economic growth and competitiveness?
• What is the relationship between investment in global
financial markets and location decisions in the real
economy without migration barriers for business andpeople?
• What will happen to the distribution of wealth in a
globalising economy? How can we describe the process ofadjustment of the regional­economic system after
exogenous shocks?
• Why does the natural science based gravity formulation
fit so well to data related to spatial interaction? Or should
there be a general theory of human interaction that goesbeyond what we have learned so far?
• How will information and communications technologies(ICTs) like the Internet and other new technologies affectwork­life balance and the spatial dynamics of labour­ 14 ­

markets?
• How will spatial connectivity structures influence
individual/aggregate well­being and related choicemodels? How will people behave and respond to new
spatial connectivity structures (both physical and non­physical)?
• What is the role of science in general ­ and Regional
Science in particular ­ given emerging and foreseeable
drastic
economic­politicalchanges?
Can
aninterdisciplinary approach help to discuss the role offormally bounded regions, space, and place under theconditions of this new world?
• How do spatial disparities in health­care access impact
human health, urban quality of life, justice and social
cohesion?
• How has the outcome of historical events (including
cultural heritage and cultural political history) impacted thespatial distribution of welfare and well­being?
Against the background of these I intriguing researchchallenges, the issue of policy is at stake. Smartgovernance should be a main topic, and demonstrate that
Regional Science can be an effective tool for public policy
practitioners. In this sense, there should be a discussion,for instance, on what kind of regional policy, where, forwhom (including the role of cities, regions, nations andinstitutions embedded in the best governance structure
possible), and how can we plan for spatially oriented
outcomes under unstable and informal economic
relations?
In conclusion, the Regional Science Academy would haveto adopt an operational approach through which it could
promote consistency between techniques, methods,
models and theories, promote effective interaction withstudents and society, and produce sound scientificresponses to urgent territorial problems of our planet.
Curriculum Development
The future of Regional Science depends on the quality of
its education. The Regional Science Academy should
pursue leadership to create a formal curriculum to befollowed by schools to become recognised via acertification in Regional Science. In this sense, Regional

Science still lacks official accreditation, and the Regional
Science Academy may promote it by designing andcreating a system for certificates. Training students in aninternational accredited program will improve the value
added and the academic recognition of the discipline,
which will likely have the long term effect of increasing
resources for education and research, and bringing more‘cache’ for both teachers and institutions involved in thediscipline.
The educational system proposed must be complemented
by the promotion of workshops, textbook series, andcurriculum development, among others. In this context, theRegional Science Academy needs to encourage effective
interaction with students and society at large. It can also
create a network of Regional Science schools, where
people from other places can join and credits can berecognized for relevant courses (for example sandwich
programs at the Master and Ph.D. levels could be a good
way to start, as well as the engagement of visiting
scholars). The Regional Science Academy could also work
as a bridge between different actors in Regional Science,
especially in relation to job openings and post­doc
opportunities, and potential candidates. This network has
to be a living entity, with its own demography, and an
openness to participation by new schools. As mentioned
previously, the Regional Science Academy may support
existing institutions in Regional Science already promoting
education (such as the RSAI). In this line, there is alreadya list of Regional Science schools5 where education ofRegional Science is taking place (for instance, the current
criterion is to have 3 PhDs in Regional Science in recent
years).
Moreover, the Regional Science Academy should
strengthen the field of Regional Science in a worldwide
context, and based on that, it could create an international
qualification system for recognised Regional Science
courses all over the world. This system could thencontribute to the recognition of classical and traditional
departments (and their curricula) in universities. Such
5 http://www.regionalscience.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=itemlist&layout=category&task=category&id=156&Itemid=735­ 15 ­

curricula should favour an interdisciplinary spirit in thespatial sciences.
In addition, the Regional Science Academy itself could
provide professional training in very specific skills for the
research community, such as how to fundraise for
networking and collaborative opportunities (i.e. workshops,
conferences, etc). Its online platform could provide anenvironment to exchange experiences, and articulate thedemand of different actors from different backgrounds.
Data Warehouse
Another main element of the Regional Science Academy
concerns the modern trend in science dynamics which iscentered on the development of coherent research fields,
driven by infrastructure facilities and large data. In many
ways it would further recent research calls for OpenRegional Science6. This calls for new ideas on common
data infrastructures and software, based on smart data
warehousing for learning, observing and analysing theregional and urban dynamics around the world. An
effectively coordinated exchange vehicle in the form of avirtual data hub is needed to provide and to facilitate
information (e.g., by developing ‘Spatial Big Data’ software
for information and knowledge initiatives and users). This
would be a challenging issue that falls within the ambit of
the Academy, for both the scientific community and theusers at large. It will help to stimulate a wide variety of(multi) disciplinary orientations and domains, byaddressing emerging relevant phenomena and analysing
spatial patterns within the worldwide Regional Science
community, (and spatial scientists in a more general
sense). Furthermore, it will yield new insights and will
simultaneously highlight a variety of ways to explore
roadmaps for future Regional Science research and tocreate possibilities for discovering and for estimating‘unknowns’, in combination with powerful analysis tools.
General Service Provision
The Regional Science Academy may also be seen as a
general facilitator for emerging new activities. Examples ofsuch novel activities are:
• Strategies for better knowledge dissemination (e.g. e­
platforms);• Inclusion of Regional Science as one of the descriptors
in the OECD database7;• Development of transformative ideas (e.g. scenarios) on
the new spatial structure of our planet;• Enhancement of liaisons with international bodies (World
Bank, UN, OECD, EU, NGOs, etc.);• Formulation of a ‘code of conduct’ for regional science
research;• Systematic fund raising from donors;• Marketing of Regional Science in a global knowledge
society, through externally­oriented websites.
Where does the development of the Regional Science
Academy stand at this moment? First, there appears to be
overwhelming international support for this new concept.
Second, various Regional Science councils (e.g., ERSAC,RSAIC) have already indicated they will endorse andwelcome this initiative as a major strategic vehicle for avibrant Regional Science community. Third, at theforthcoming NARSC conference in Portland (November2015), the final steps will be taken towards a formalisationof all these ideas. And finally, last but not least, theAcademy’s work plan is in full swing and will include
shortly some path­breaking new initiatives, e.g., ‘Spatial
Big Data’, ‘Science of the City’, ‘It’s a Small World’ and‘Homo Mobilis’. More information can soon be found on
the Regional Science Academy website (shortly
operational).

8. Centres of Regional Science:
The
Research
Centrefor
Macroeconomic
andRegional
Forecasting (PROMAR), Bucharest
University of Economic Studies
by Prof. Dr. Daniela L. Constantin, Director of PROMAR(daniela.constantin@ase.ro)
The Research Centre for Macroeconomic and Regional
6 Western Regional Science Association (WRSA) Presidential address by

Sergio J Rey. See “Open regional science” in the Annals of Regional
Science (2014) Issue 52, 825­837.
7 See website: http://ipscience­help.thomsonreuters.com/incitesLive/globalComparisonsGroup/globalComparisons/subjAreaSchemesGroup/oecd.html­ 16 ­

Forecasting (PROMAR) was set up
within the Bucharest University of
Economic Studies at the beginning of
2007. It covers a large research area in
the field of macroeconomic analysis andforecasting (sustainable economic
growth,macroeconomic
correlations,sectorialcorrelations, international flows, European integration,etc.) as well as in the field of regional economics andforecasting(regional
growth,convergence–competitiveness – territorial cooperation, regional
employment, internal and external migration, investment
impact, environmental sustainability, institutional issues,etc.), employing as the main tools empirical analysis,
econometric modelling, scenario­based methods,
international comparisons, etc.
Its members are academics with top reputations inscientific research at the national level and with important
visibility at the international scale. PhD students and MSc
students are also involved in the Centre’s activities. In total
it counts 20 members, involved in many international
projects (including the FP7 project “Growth – Innovation –Competitiveness: Fostering Cohesion in Central andEastern Europe/GRINCOH”, the ESPON project“Indicators and Perspectives for Services of General
Interest in Territorial Cohesion and Development/SeGI”,
the DG REGIO project “The Objective of Economic andSocial Cohesion in the Economic Policies of Member
States”, and the World Bank project “Geography of Crisisin Central and East European Countries”). The group alsofrequently joins national projects funded by the National
Plan of Scientific Research and the National Council for
Scientific Research in Higher Education (e.g. “Diminishingregional disparities as a basic condition for the economic
and social cohesion. The quality of European integration”,“Research regarding the involvement of Romanian
universities in urban restructuring and regional
development”, “Economic and social analyses forunderlying the spatial plans”, “Inter­disciplinary approach
regarding the improvement of living conditions via large
housing estates rehabilitation in Romania” and so on).

The Centre’s researchers have been actively involved inorganizing the Romanian Regional Science Association
conferences and the 2012 RSAI World Congress inTimisoara and have also participated in numerous ERSA
and RSAI meetings.
The PROMAR Centre has established collaborative
partnerships with other research centres within the
Bucharest University of Economic Studies as well as withresearch institutes of the Romanian Academy, with the
National Commission of Forecasting, the National Instituteof Statistics, the Ministry of Regional Development andPublic Administration. At international level, co­operationagreements have been established with the Regional
Economics Applications Laboratory (REAL) of the
University of Illinois at Urbana­Champaign –US, theResearch Centre for Regulatory Science of the George
Mason University, US, Department of Economic
Geography and Geoinformatics of Wirtschaftsuniversitaet
Vienna, Austria.
In the next few years the PROMAR Centre aims to attract
new promising young researchers among its members
and to enlarge and consolidate the research networks
established with Romanian and foreign partners so as tohave further successful participations in nationally and EU­
funded projects.

PROMAR members at a project meeting­ 17 ­J OURNALS OF THE REGIONAL S CIENCE A SSOCIATION I NTERNATIONAL
Papers in Regional Science

Regional Science Policy & Practice

Edited By: Roberta CapelloOnline ISSN: 1435­5957
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1435­5957

Edited By: Michael Carroll
Online ISSN: 1757­7802
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1757­7802

RSAI M EMBERSHIP I NFORMATIONAll RSAI members have online access to the Papers in Regional Science (PiRS) and to the Regional Science Policy
and Practice (RSPP): Journals of the Regional Science Association International. Members will need to log in to access fulltext articles Online.
RSAI NEWSLETTER, the newsletter of the Association, appears two times a year and contains information about upcoming
conferences and meetings, recent publications and a periodic guide to graduate programs in regional science. Please send
all electronic submissions of material for the RSAI Newsletter directly to andrea.caragliu@polimi.it and/or
G.P.Clarke@leeds.ac.uk.
Participation in national and international meetings is encouraged; over twenty international, national and regional meetings
are held each year. Two of the Association's superregional organizations, the North American Regional Science Council(NARSC) and the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) hold annual meetings in November and August. The
third superregional organization, the Pacific Regional Science Conference Organization (PRSCO), holds a meeting every
two years.
Each year, the Association conducts a competition for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of regional science. Winners
are encouraged to present their work at one of the major international meetings.
In addition to the RSAI publications, members are offered an opportunity to purchase other regional science journals at
reduced rates and participate in the national and international conferences at reduced rates.
RSAI membership has its benefits and privileges, including:­ Right to vote for representation of the Council of the Regional Science Association International­ Eligibility for awards of RSAI­ Discounted registration fees at conferences organized by RSAI, NARSC, ERSA, PRSCO, and RSAmericas­ RSAI newsletter­ Participation in and access to a worldwide network of 4500 regional scientists­ Complimentary electronic access to the two journals of RSAI, Papers in Regional Science, and Regional Science Policy
and Practice. Access to these journals is possible through your RSAI member access portal.
­ Complimentary electronic access to the following journals, Journal of Regional Science, Growth and Change, GeographicalAnalysis and International Journal of Urban and regional Research. Access to these journals is possible through your RSAI
member access portal.
For details on how to become a member, contact the Executive Director at rsai@apdr.pt or visit www.regionalscience.org.

­ 18 ­

1. Introduction to the Special Issue: the future of Regional Science
1.1 Welcome from the President
1.2 Welcome to the 2015 NARSC Congress
1.3 Welcome to the 2016 World RSAI Congress
1.4 Welcome from the Editors

01
01
01
02
03

2. In search of a discipline: envisioning and framing a regional science roadmap

03

3.Challenges for Regional Science: institutional prospects05

4. News from the RSAI

06

4.1 Book series Advances in Spatial Science: Call for book proposals
4.2 2016 ERSA Summer School
4.3 2015 ERSA Summer School
4.4 2015 ERSA Congress ­ Lisbon
4.5 Invited plenary address by Bob Stimson at the annual ANZRSAI congress
4.6. RSAI/ERSA 2015 Barcelona Workshop on Regional and Urban Economics: Spatial
Perspectives of Human Capital

06
07
07
07
08
08

5. Future challenges for Regional Science09

6. Meet the Fellows: Gordon Mulligan

10

7. Regional Science as a radical science innovation

13

8. Centres of Regional Science: The Research Centre for Macroeconomic and Regional
Forecasting (PROMAR), Bucharest University of Economic Studies

16