The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government launched his reform proposals to generally underwhelming degrees of debate on the 12th October 2012 and a year later the Oireachtas is considering these reforms with the Local Government Bill 2013. Outside the Department and the Oireachtas, the debate receives very little attention and input from […]
This article is a summary by Paul Benneworth of the Top Tips on Presenting Skills Workshop held as part of the RSA European Conference 2013, Tampere, 6th May 2013. The editors of Regional Insights are grateful to the presenters at that workshop for their contributions and insights. A highlight of academic life is attending conferences. No just […]
You might have noticed that the RSA blog has been rather quiet lately. While we might be quiet, we are actively and continuously putting forward new and interesting projects. As part of this process, the reins of the RSA blog, social media activities and online promotion have been handed over to me, Alexandru F. […]
The RSA’s first North American conference is scheduled to take place at the University of California Los Angeles in December, but based on research from the UCLA Climate Sensitivity Research Lounge it may turn out to be a hot Christmas! Well maybe not this year, but the research highlights the impacts of climate change on […]
The current edition of Environment and Planning: A features Prof. Andreas Faludi’s plenary paper, presented at the RSA European Conference at Delft University of Technology in May 2012. His paper: Territorial cohesion, territorialism, territoriality, and soft planning: a critical review provides a comprehensive review of recent theoretical and empirical work on the relationships between territoriality and spatial […]
Former RSA Chair Professor David Bailey his view on Lord Heseltine’s plan for a decentralised English regional funding pot to the tune of £70bn There’s been a huge ‘Yes Minister style’ scrap going on in Whitehall over the Heseltine Plan for decentralisation, whereby Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) could bid for funding from a ‘single pot’. […]
The newest edition of Regional Insights, a magazine published by the Regional Studies Association which seeks to make research findings from early career researchers more accessible to a wider audience, is now out. This issue has a range of articles available for those interested in regional issues, including: Gordon Dabinett on ‘A changing academic publishing […]
Regional Insights focuses on publishing short articles from students and early career researchers (up to five years from Ph.D. date) to make their research accessible to all members of the Regional Studies Association. Regional Insights’ articles are characterised by having a ‘regional’ focus and by succinctly conveying a ‘fresh idea’ to the readership. The editors […]
Another guest post today in the David Bailey mini-series! This post is about the abolition of Regional Development Agencies in England – and their replacement with ‘Local Enterprise Partnerships’… After Regional Development Agencies were scrapped by the Coalition government in 2010, smaller scale Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were set up – effectively as partnerships […]
Guest blog: Professor David Bailey, Coventry University Business School, UK The Heseltine Plan appears to have been kicked into the long grass – by the current government at least. In something of a ‘rumble in the jungle’, Business Secretary Vince Cable last week poured cold water on Heseltine (or his plan at least). But […]
Together with Pascal Boijmans (European Commission) and John Bachtler (European Policies Research Centre, UK) Prof. Michael Parkinson will kick off the first plenary session of the RSA European Conference in Tampere, Finland with a simple but critical question which demonstrates the role of regional studies in informing policy debates. His question (and the title of […]
No matter what your opinion is of The Economist, their use of graphics and maps helps shed light on complex policy issues – and often those with a regional dimension. For example, in 2010 they published a fascinating map on the ‘true size’ of Africa (below), following the earlier example by Kai Krause. This is […]
A system of financial transfer payments is employed in the Federal Republic of Germany as a means of compensating for substantial differences in the financial power of the federal states (Länder). For the year 2012, only three federal states, all located in southern Germany were net contributors while the remaining thirteen states were net recipients […]
Are you a PhD student or Early Career Researcher with an interest in regional studies? If so, the editors of Regional Insights (Paul Benneworth; Paul Braidford; Beatrix Haselsberger; Gert-Jan Hospers; Sabrina Lai & Julie Porter) would like to hear from you and help you develop your next research publication. See below details of the new […]
In the previous blog post we highlighted our forthcoming conference in Tampere, Finland from 5 to 8 May this year. If this alone does not tempt you to book a place on the conference (still time to put an abstract in!) then the city of Tampere should. Tampere is the third largest city in Finland, […]
The deadline for abstract submission for the Regional Studies Association European Conference is fast approaching (Sunday 27th January). This year the conference is hosted by the University of Tampere in Finland and will take place from 5th – 8th May. The conference theme is ‘Shape and Be Shaped: the future dynamics of regional development’. […]
Sprawl is widely regarded as the scourge of urban planners, but it is not always the easiest thing to measure. One possible way to explore the extent of urban sprawl is using land cover data. In Europe, the European Environment Agency use the Corine (coordination of information on the environment) progamme to categorise land cover […]
In 2008 Google began a mapping project called ‘Ground Truth‘ which, they hoped, would revolutionise online mapping and, ultimately, help build better maps for us to use. As of 2012, more than 1 billion people use Google maps so it was very nice when, only ten days ago, they released updated maps for 10 countries […]
Researchers and practitioners in the field of regional studies have long promoted spatial approaches to policy, development and the application of public sector resources. In Europe, concepts such as territorial cohesion, place-based approaches and integrated spatial planning all promote spatial sensitivity in policy-making and are critical of the ‘spatial blindness’ of approaches which do not […]
Some Euro mapping today, from the wonderful web pages of Ben Hennig, author of the Views of the World blog at the University of Sheffield. Ben recently looked at the financial state of the European Union in a series of maps and his latest blog goes one better – it visualises the EU budget with […]
The 2012 Regional Studies Association Early Career Conference took place on 1st and 2nd November at Hafen City University in Hamburg. The conference under the title of Times of Change: Future Directions in Geography, Urban and Regional Studies examined the implications of the current economic and financial crisis for future of regional studies. Individual sessions covered a wide range […]
As the North Eastern coast of the U.S. recovers from the devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy questions are being raised about urbanisation processes and how best to accommodate growth while also protecting homes and businesses against the potential impact of major natural disasters. Here at RSA headquarters we have picked up on a discussion being […]
On the 11th of September this year, we reported that RSA Chief Executive Sally Hardy was planning to cycle from London to Slovenia. We were informed that, contrary to popular belief, this was not simply a new RSA membership drive but instead a much more ambitious charity fund-raising adventure that would pass through 7 countries […]
Eurostat, the official publishers of European statistical data, have recently released their Regional Yearbook for 2012. The yearbook is a useful resource for anyone interested in all things European, as it highlights recent economic, social and demographic developments throughout the territory. Most of the data is provided at the EU standard NUTS 2 regional level, […]