Minutes of the PRSCO Council Meeting
Held on Thursday 10 November 2005
Skybox 210
Riviera Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas, USAPresident Jorge Serrano opened the meeting at 12:30 pm. He noted with sadness thepassing away of Prof Dr Keiichi Tanaka of Nihon University on 15 August 2005, at theage of 68. Professor Tanaka played a major role in regional science in Japan, and had
been the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 19th Pacific Conference in Tokyo,
July 25-28, 2005, which he was unfortunately unable to attend due to his illness.
Condolences of the regional science community were conveyed to Dr Masahide Tanaka
who was present at the PRSCO Council meeting to represent the Tanaka family. A
minute of silence in memory of Prof Dr Keiichi Tanaka was observed.
a. Apologies received and roll-call
Apologies received:
H. von Baer (SOCHER), M. Tawada (JSRSAI), Y. Miyata (JSRSAI), D. Edgington(CRSA), N. Kumata (JSRSAI), I.B. Yussof (MRSA), B. Resosudarmo (IRSA), J.
Madden (ANZRSAI)
Present:
Patricio Aroca (SOCHER)
Antoine Bailly (LRPC, Past President RSAI)Peter Batey (LRPC, Past President RSAI)Jorge Enrique Bueno (Universidad Autonoma de Occidente, Cali, Columbia)
Graham Clarke (Executive Director RSAI)
Lay Gibson (WRSA, LRPC, Past President RSAI)
Kingsley Haynes (LRPC, Past President RSAI)
Yoshiro Higano (JSRSAI, Executive Secretary)
Takeshi Mizunoya (JSRSAI, representing Yuzuru Miyata)
Shin Kung Peng (CRSA-T)
David Plane (WRSA)
Jacques Poot (ANZRSAI)John Quigley (WRSA, representing T.John Kim)
Jorge Serrano (AMECIDER, President)
Bob Stimson (ANZRSAI representing John Madden, RSAI President)
Roger Stough (WRSA)
Masahide Tanaka (JSRSA, son of the late Keiichi Tanaka)

1The Executive Secretary, Yoshiro Higano, reported that he had also invited two
representatives for PRSCO from the Indian Regional Science Association, C. Passak andP. Nag, but they were unable to attend the Las Vegas NARSC meeting.
b. Minutes of the PRSCO Council Meeting in Tokyo, Japan, 27 July 2005
The minutes were approved as a correct record of the meeting.
c. Report on the organization of the 20th PRSCO regular conference, in British
Columbia (CRSA)David Edgington (University of British Columbia, PRSCO Councilor), who chairs theorganizing committee of the 20th PRSCO conference, was unable to attend the meetingbut provided a written report. Other members of the local organizing committee areRichard Sheamur (INRS-UCS Montreal, PRSCO Councilor), Pierre-Marcel Desjardins ,Univ. of Moncton, CRSA President), Marc Brown (Statistics Canada, CRSA ExecutiveOfficer), Clarence Woudsma (U. of Calgary), Roger Hayter (UBC) and Mike Buzelli(UBC). An international advisory board would be set up.
Due to high demand for hotel accommodation in the summer months, the conference
would be held for three days in May, 2007. The conference would be held at the Coast
Plaza Hotel in downtown Vancouver, which is convenient for walking to shops, thebeach front at English Bay and to Stanley Park. Due to the 2010 Winter Olympics to beheld in Whistler BC, one of the conference themes would be leisure, sports and regionaldevelopment. An afternoon would be set aside for field trips to various parts of theVancouver region, highlighting the many connections to the Pacific Rim countries (forinstance, Vancouver’s port, its international airport, high-tech industries, Chinatown
heritage district and Concord Pacific Place, a planned community developed by Hong
Kong’s Li Ka-shing). The conference banquet is planned to take place in the famous
Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, which has many
artifacts of local Canadian Indian tribes.
A website will be developed and the first call for conference papers will take place inDecember 2006. For further inquiries, David Edgington can be contacted by email toedgingtn@geog.ubc.ca
After this report, PRSCO councilors recommended that the Vancouver conference should
be scheduled as late as possible in May (i.e. during the last third of the month), as thiswould fit in best with university schedules in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
d. Progress report on the organization of the 2006 PRSCO Summer Institute inKuala Lumpur (MRSA)
Representatives of the Malaysian Regional Science Association were unable to attend theNARSC meeting in Las Vegas, but it was noted that a call for papers for the 9th PRSCO
Summer Institute to be held at the Mandarin Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 19-21,
2006, had already been distributed. The theme of the 2006 meeting in Kuala Lumpur is“Regions on a Global Platform”. The registration fee for international participants will be
US $225, while the local fee is RM600. A lower fee would be introduced for students andalso for overseas participants from developing countries.
Further information can be obtained from Ishak Yussof, who can be contacted by email
to iby@pkrisc.cc.ukm.my2

e. Report on the organization of the Chilean Association of Regional Studies(SOCHER) and affiliation of SOCHER to PRSCO and RSAI
Patricio Aroca noted that his colleague Heinrich von Baer was unable to attend, but that
he would report on behalf of his Chilean colleagues on a meeting of Chilean researcherswith an interest in regional science that was held on October 14. There were 73
participants, and this was sufficient to meet the requirement of a minimum of 25
registered members to establish the Chilean Association of Regional Science (with theacronym SOCHER).
It was noted that many of the members of SOCHER are young persons at the beginningof their careers and the international regional science community can play an importantrole in capability building. It was expected that it would be proposed at RSAI Council
that the Chilean organization would be formally accepted as a section of RSAI.
f. Report on other activities of Pacific Rim regional science communities(1) Columbia
Jorge Enrique Bueno reported on the Economic Research and Development Group(GIED) at the Universidad Autonoma de Occidente in Cali, which is the capital of theregion of Valle del Cauca. However, he spoke on behalf of all those with an interest in
regional science in Columbia. Another Columbian regional scientist, Isabel Aponte
Jaramillo, had also hoped to be present at NARSC, but had been unable to do so.
Cali is the second largest city in Columbia. The Group at Cali aims at to study thestructure and dynamics of the Valle del Cauca region. It also aims to develop graduate
and postgraduate research programs. Fields of interest include economic analysis,economic growth/productivity/quality of life, agricultural economics and publiceconomics. The Group currently consists of 22 researchers (6 fulltime academics, 8adjunct professors and 8 graduate students). Since its inception in 1999, the group hasconducted 31 research projects, of which 21 have been now completed and 10 are still inprogress; 8 are inter-institutional. The projects yielded a range of national publications.
(2) China
Roger Stough reported on his recent visit to Shanghai, where he met Dr Wong of the East
China Normal University. Dr Wong is a spokesperson for the Chinese Regional ScienceAssociation. He is also a Fellow of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences. Other
important regional science contacts in China are for example at Peking University.
Overall, it was felt that the time was ripe for bringing the Mainland China regional
science community under the umbrella of PRSCO. It appeared that a more open
legislative/regulatory environment was emerging under which the affiliation of regional
scientists in the PRC to PRSCO would become easier. It was suggested that a workshop
could be organized in Shanghai or Beijing in Northern Hemisphere Spring 2006. Yoshiro
Higano would visit Shanghai in December 2005 and would make contact withappropriate persons. Shin-kun Peng reported that 5 scholars from Mainland China wouldparticipate in a meeting in Taiwan, around December 7-8, 2005.
It was noted that there were also other initiatives taking place with respect to building
bridges between the international regional science community and the regional scientists

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in the PRC (such as workshops organized by Manas Chatterjee). It was noted that it isimportant to coordinate any such initiatives through RSAI so that confusion or
duplication can be avoided.
g1) Nomination of successor to Prof Tanaka as Vice President of PRSCO 2005 (andPresident of PRSCO 2006-2007)
At the annual meeting of the JSRSAI in Tottori, 8-10 October 2005, it was resolved thatYoshinobu Kumata would replace the late Keiichi Tanaka as JSRSAI Councilor onPRSCO and consequently as PRSCO Vice-President in 2005 and President in 2006-2007.
g2) Nomination of Vice President of PRSCO, 2006-2007 (CRSA)
Given the hosting of the 20th regular conference of PRSCO in 2007 by the local CRSA
group in Vancouver, David Edgington was nominated as the Vice President of PRSCOfor 2006-2007.
h) PRSCO delegate for the RSAI Council, 2006-2008 (CRSA)
Y. Higano reported that CRSA decided to nominate D. Edgington as the delegate, whoshall be sent by CRSA given the agreement made in the last Council Meeting in Tokyo,and D. Edgington has accepted to serve as the delegate.
i) International Symposium of the RSAI, Bangalore, India, January 6-8, 2006
This meeting would proceed as planned and regional scientists of Pacific Rim sections
were strongly encouraged to participate. The symposium would help to strengthen thelinks between the Indian Regional Science Association and RSAI/PRSCO.
Being related with this, P. Batey suggested to change name of PRSCO to APRSCO, orsomething like that given the decision made by the last Long Range Planning Committee.
It was noted by Y. Higano that the change of the name shall be tentative one till a newsuper-region named South and Mid East Asia or something like that is established as thefourth or fifth super region in the RSAI. Y. Higano also noted that the name of PRSCO
has established a kind of brand in the RSAI. It was agreed that we continue to discuss
about this matter.
j) Report of the Pacific Editor, PiRSThis item was not discussed as the Pacific Editor, Jacques Poot, had to leave the Council
Meeting in order to present a NARSC paper at this time. However, it can be noted thatthe transition to Blackwell had been completed and electronic subscriptions areincreasing as RSAI sections adopted universal membership. The number of paper
submissions per year to PiRS is around 90 at present but looks to increase to around 100.
A web-based submission system would be implemented from January 2006 onwards.
As always, members of PRSCO section are encouraged to submit their best papers toPiRS.
k) Any further business
There was no further business.
Jorge Serrano closed the meeting at 1.45 pm.

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