RSA Membership Research Grant Scheme (MeRSA)

Previous and Current Grant Holders

Bank Branch Closings and Local SME Economic Activity in Slovakia – Good Servant but a Bad Master?

Better access to finance has been shown to improve economic growth, both globally and locally. Yet, the ongoing financialization relying on alternative distributional channels (FINTEC industry) challenges the need for physical presence of credit intermediators, local bank branches in particular. Hypothetically, reduction in local bank network, if compensated by new online distributional channels, should therefore have a neutral impact on local businesses activities as well as overall regional economic performance. This project aims to investigate how bank branch closings affect economic performance of individual firms in Slovakia. I will specifically focus on change in economic performance of SME segment (productivity) that represents the cornerstone of regional development in Europe and is hypothesised to be mostly affected by the bank branch closures.

This research aims to deliver relevant knowledge to different groups of stakeholders: policy makers, banking industry, or bank customers. First and foremost, policy makers in charge of competitiveness and industrial policy need to comprehend implications of ongoing structural changes in banking industry. This is true especially when it comes to funding of SME sector, which in Europe constitutes more than 99.8% of all businesses, contributes to 54.6% of total value added and provides employment for 67% of the total active labour force (EC, 2019). However, this sector is also the one most exposed towards the potential credit rationing by banking sector. On the one hand, restricted access to credit due to natural creative destruction in banking industry might be compensated by targeted support of new innovative technological solutions. Potentially, the creative destruction itself might result in market-based innovative solutions without any further involvement of economic policy.

“I am deeply honoured and very grateful to the Regional Studies Association to become a recipient of the MeRSA grant. This award will help me to analyse effects of recently observed re-design of bank branch network that may affect business activity of small and medium enterprises which form a backbone of Slovak economy. Thanks to the grant I hope I will be able to ignite the passion for research also among young generation of students.”

Christophe Sohn

Borders reloaded! The impact of rebordering dynamics on European cross-border regionalism

The overall aim of the project is to investigate the ways in which the hardening of EU’s internal borders in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and more broadly the resurgence of borders in the political agenda of states, affect the ideas underpinning cross-border cooperation (CBC) and the discourses of local and regional actors engaged in cross-border region-building. The starting point of the project is the acknowledgement that the on-going dynamics of rebordering are challenging the significance of supposedly open borders for CBC. While the immediate reactions of regional actors and the socio-economic consequences of border closures for European border regions have hold scholars’ attention, the ways in which rebordering may deeply impact actors’ beliefs, claims and imaginaries that underlie their CBC initiatives remains a subject little explored to date.

Based on a discursive-material approach, the project aims at (1) uncovering the conditions and mechanisms through which ideational changes occur in local and regional CBC discourses and (2) examining the implications of these changes for the governance of cross-border regions and their development paths. Empirically, the research relies on the analysis of actors’ discourses in two emblematic cross-border metropolitan regions: Greater Geneva, at the French–Swiss border, and Greater Copenhagen, at the Danish–Swedish border. The analysis of CBC stakeholders’ interview accounts mobilizes a multimodal social semiotics perspective attentive to how different communication artefacts (spoken and written texts, images) combine and are used to create meaning in specific social contexts. Finally, the project aims at translating the research outcomes into insights for policymakers at regional, national and EU levels who seek to address the challenges posed by rebordering to cross-border integration, regional development and cohesion policies.

I am very honoured to be awarded a MeRSA grant. This award will allow me to explore the spatial and political implications of the ‘reloading’ of borders into the cross-border cooperation ‘mindware’, with a potential to have both an academic and policy impact. I am particularly excited by the opportunity to showcase my research and contribute to develop a fruitful dialogue between border studies and the lively RSA community.

Simón Sánchez-Moral

Disentangling COVID-19 as a driving force of path development processes in Spain

This research seeks to further explore path development processes in Spanish regions by analysing the industrial sector’s response to the shortage of medical supplies during the COVID -19 pandemic. This was caused by difficulties in purchasing abroad and interrupted supply chains, especially during the first part of the year 2020. Given this context, the project seeks to study the diversification strategies in existing firms throughout the country, or the creation of new ones, aimed at manufacturing medical instruments and materials. Keeping in mind the factors of a limited time frame and a possible limited spatial impact of this phenomenon, we seek to to contribute to the understanding of how the path development mechanism operates in different regional contexts, while addressing key challenges in the Evolutionary Economic Geography’s research agenda. In particular, the study will examine regional pre-existing conditions for regional diversification. It will emphasize regional knowledge bases, the role of related and unrelated variety, firms’ external connections, as well as routines, conventions and policies within the regional innovation system. The study is based on a mixed-methods approach.

I am very honored to develop the Regional Studies Association Membership Research Grant Scheme (MeRSA). The support by the RSA will help us to contribute to this research agenda and reinforce international collaborations.

Carolina Castaldi

“Soft innovation? Towards new narratives on regional capabilities and policies”

The overall aim of the project is to investigate how the inclusion of soft innovation in theoretical, empirical and policy work at the regional level can help creating new narratives on regional capabilities. By ‘soft innovation’ one understands all forms of innovation that are not purely technological or functional. The starting point of the project is the acknowledgement that when it comes to regional capabilities and regional resilience the dominant narrative tends to center around technological capabilities and assume an underlying R&D-driven model of economic growth. Yet, there is increasing awareness that other forms of capabilities and that sectors where formal R&D is not the main source of innovation might also act as drivers of regional resilience.

Theoretically, the project aims at making space for soft innovation capabilities in models of regional resilience by investigating how existing frameworks can be adapted and/or overturned. Empirically, the project aims at developing original metrics of regional capabilities using trademarks and design rights, and linking them to indicators of regional resilience. Finally, the project aims at translating the results from theory and empirics into insights for policymakers to embrace new narratives on regional capabilities.

I am very honored to be awarded one of the MeRSA grants. The award will allow me to showcase my research to the lively RSA community, with a tremendous potential to have both academic and policy impact. I am excited by the opportunity to engage in research that can contribute to widen our perspective on which regional capabilities and innovation types matter for places to thrive.

Adriana Mihaela Soaita

Exploring the nexus between trust, corruption and anti-corruption policies in post-communist Romania

Read the latest publication here: https://regions.regionalstudies.org/ezine/article/romania-digitalization/

The Blog article is available here – Long-distance research during the Covid-19 crisis: trust and corruption in Romania

You can read more about this research here: https://ziarulargesul.ro/municipiul-pitesti-obiect-de-studiu-la-o-universitate-britanica/

THE RESEARCH PUZZLE: It is striking that a great majority of Europeans believe corruption is widespread in their countries, yet few have experienced it. In the least corrupt EU states of Denmark, Finland and Sweden, 20-44% of people thought corruption was widespread but less than 1% indicated they paid or were expected to pay a bribe. The corresponding figures for Romania were 93% and 25%. This paradoxically high difference between belief and experience shows that people’s own meanings of corruption have to be better understood. It begs not only methodological questions of validity and theoretical questions on what exactly people mean by corruption, but it draws attention to broader questions of trust and distrust. While quantitative measures of trust/corruption have become standard survey questions, I argue it is timely for in-depth qualitative examinations – – currently uncommon – – that focus on peoples’ meanings, beliefs and practices. I propose a longitudinal-qualitative study, uniquely enabled by my previous work in 2007/08 in order to unpack this puzzle.

AIMS: To identify the mechanisms ––i.e. discourses, norms, beliefs, social and institutional practices––that link concepts of trust, practices of corruption, and anti-corruption policies in Romania; and to reflect on the social and temporal dynamics of these mechanisms.

WHY ROMANIA? Since 2012 a high-level anticorruption drive has taken place in Romania; over 2,000 high-ranking public executives were convicted, including one prime-minister, 21 MPs and 30 judges. Weakened by governmental/parliamentary acts since 2017, large street protests and the results of the May 2019 referendum have demanded its continuation. These developments posit Romania as a timely and interesting social laboratory to analyse the trust/corruption nexus.

I am delighted to receive a RSA membership grant (MeRSA) for a longitudinal qualitative research on the nexus between trust and corruption. I am thrilled that this award enables me to revisit and re-interview my prior participants in the city of Pitești, Romania, and see how and why their opinions have changed. Romania constitutes a timely and interesting social laboratory given the recent high-profile anti-corruption measures, large anti-corruption street demonstrations, increasing institutional transparency, and yet practices of bribery and favoritism stubbornly persist.

Vassilis Tselios

Political decentralisation and regional poverty in the EU

There is a growing trend for central governments to transfer political authority to subnational tiers of government, known as political decentralisation, as well as a growing and widely accepted recognition of the important role of governments in reducing poverty. The purpose of this project is to examine whether and how an increase in political decentralisation (which is a regional policy instrument) reduces European regional poverty rate and social exclusion (which are regional policy aims), after controlling for some economic, social, political and geographical charactersitics of the European regions. The association between regional policy instruments and regional policy aims crucially depends on many other policies, such as policy effectiveness, policies for private development, and policies for innovation. The outcomes of this project will be of relevance to researchers and policymakers from a wide range of disciplines and who are interested in seeing whether and how political decentralisation could act as an instrument for lower regional poverty levels.

“I am very excited to be a recipient of the prestigious MeRSA grant. I am very interested in empirically examine political decentralisation outcomes. This award will help me to examine whether and how the regional government of a European country has the capacity to reduce regional poverty and social exclusion. I trust that this grant will be a stimulus and encouraging signal for the advancement of my research”.

Elisa Giuliani

Rethinking regional development agendas: Human rights and economic growth into perspective

Read the article here – Regional development facing global sustainability challenges

Business-related human rights (BHR) infringements are site-specific violations of universal human rights caused by companies as they pursue their economic goals. They include cases of child labor exploitation and modern slavery in global value chains; of damages to human health and right to life following manufacturing industry’s toxic emissions; violation of indigenous communities’ right to land or water in connection with extractive industry operations, among others. Because aggregate data about BHR infringements are alarming, international organizations like the United Nations and the OECD have taken steps to make companies accountable for their negative impacts on human rights. Yet, considerations about BHR infringements seldom enter into regional economic growth agendas and policies, which are still largely influenced by the contentious idea that economic growth will eventually improve human rights. Current policies are thus largely unprepared to deal with the human suffering caused by companies as they allegedly contribute to growth and do not contemplate the prevention of, and remedy for, BHR infringements. In this project we seek to change this conversation and spark new policy thinking around these topical issues.

Heike Mayer

Slow Innovation in Europe`s Peripheral Regions

Innovation processes are often conceptualized with an urban bias and are therefore theorized solely considering the perspective of the urban environment. As a result, innovation theories do not sufficiently consider the context of the periphery and how this context may foster or hinder the development of innovative products, technologies and services. Economic geographers started to conceptualize innovation processes in peripheral locations as `slow innovation` (Shearmur, 2015, 2017; Shearmur & Doloreux, 2016), but they have neither developed clear typologies nor differentiations between different forms of innovation (social, technological, product, process, etc.). This project examines innovation processes in different types of peripheral regions in the European Alps. Of interest are the ways in which these innovators utilize different forms of knowledge, how they are connected to their immediate environments but also to urban places (urban-rural linkages), and to what extent they can be considered as `slow innovators` in the sense Shearmur et al. describe. The particular relevance of this research lies in questions regarding the development potential of peripheral regions. As especially the unsuccessful peripheral regions suffer from outmigration, ageing of the population, structural economic change, it is important to not only focus on their deficiencies but also on their potential. Knowing more about innovation in the periphery will allow European policymakers to obtain a more differentiated and place-sensitive perspective (Iammarino, Rodríguez-Pose, & Storper, 2017; Rodríguez-Pose, 2018).

Joanie Willett

Understanding Brexit and Trump in Post-Industrial, Peripheral Areas: Implications for Regional Development

Read the latest article here – The Complex Adaptive Region-Assemblage and Local Economies: New Perspectives for Tackling Regional Inequalities

The rise in anti-establishment populism across Western nations is understood to be symbolic of the gulf that has opened up between wealthy, apparently metropolitan, often urban ‘core’, regions; and peripheral localities in decline. As we have seen in recent elections in the UK, US, France, Germany, and Italy; the breadth and depth of disparities between core and peripheral regions indicates an urgent need to better understand what is going wrong, in order to figure out how to make things right. This has an important potential impact on the practice and measurement of economic development.
Current research into the efficacy of regional investment focuses on quantitative and qualitative factors around funding programmes, how they have been implemented, their impact on human capital and regional knowledge systems, and how they interact with the local environment (Rodriguez-Pose and Fratesi 2004; Rodriguez-Pose and Crescenzi, 2008; Crescenzi and Giua, 2016; Camagni and Capello, 2015; Barca et al. 2012). However to date, studies overlook how ordinary members of the public perceive, experience, and feel about the individual projects pursued under strategic development agenda’s, how these developments are fitted into local cultural schemae, and what impact this has on a general perception (and approval rating) of the funding agenda. This study aims to explore if there is a link between how development is perceived and experienced, and discontent with anti-establishment anger.
This research will explore these questions through a case study of Brexit voting Cornwall in the UK, and the Trump voting Mount Rogers area of Virginia, USA. Both are peripheral rural regions that have seen significant economic changes over recent decades, and have received development funding in order to try to help the regions mediate these changes. This study will explore the stories that are told about the case study regions, in order to understand the relationship between these stories, the intentions of strategic planners, and development policy outcomes.

Xabier Gainza

The electoral bias: distributive politics and local development in Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Colombia

Application Deadline (Expression of Interest): Spring 2023

The MeRSA Grant operates a two stage application and assessment process. In the first round, applicants are asked to submit an expression of interest. The Expression of Interest should submitted via the form – please click on the button below to apply. Shortlisted applicants from this first round will then be asked to submit a full proposal as part of the final selection round. The Expression of Interest should include the following (see details in the handbook):

Applicant information details
Title of the research project
Timings of the research
Summary including details of research and the advances it is hoped that it will make (Max 500 words)
Brief overview of costs and budget
1-3 page CV

Apply for MeRSA grant scheme

If you have any questions or need any help with the submission form, please send us an email to mersa@regionalstudies.org

To see about our grant holder research projects and to watch their videos explaining their research, please click on the Previous and Current Grant Holders grant holder names on the lower left of this page.

In the video below, Sabine Dörry, RSA Ambassador to Luxembourg and previous MeRSA grant holder shares her top tips for writing grant applications.

In the video below, Xabier Gainza, one of our 2017 MeRSA Grant Holders gives his tips for grant applications:

Andrea Morrison, a MeRSA Grant holder, shares his tips for a successful grant application in the recording below: