2024 RSA Annual Conference Spotlight Sessions

Come along to hear about key journals in the field of regional studies and regional science and the requirements to publish in these journals. Editors will introduce their journal, its scope, aspects to consider when choosing a journal and give advice on how to write papers for successful publication. There will be time for questions and an opportunity to discuss your paper with editors of each journal.

Everybody welcome!

This session discusses Social Infrastructure and Left Behind Places by John Tomaney, Maeve Blackman, Lucy Natarajan, Dimitrios Panayotopoulos-Tsiros, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Myfanwy Taylor. This book explores the making, unmaking and remaking of social infrastructure in ‘left-behind places’. Such places, typically once flourishing industrial communities that have been excluded from recent economic growth, now attract academic and policy attention as sites of a political backlash against globalisation and liberal democracy. The book focuses on the role of social infrastructure as a key component of this story.

Seeking to move beyond a narrowly economistic of reading ‘left behind places’, the book addresses the understudied affective dimensions of ‘left-behindness’. It develops an analytical framework that emphasises the importance of place attachments and the consequences of their disruption; considers ‘left behind places’ as ‘moral communities’ and the making of social infrastructure as an expression of this; views the unmaking of social infrastructure through the lens of ‘root shock’; and explains efforts at remaking it in terms of the articulation of ‘radical hope’.

The analysis builds upon a case study of a former mining community in County Durham, North East England. Using mixed methods, it offers a ‘deep place study’ of a single village to understand more fully the making, unmaking and remaking of social infrastructure. It shows how a place once richly endowed with social infrastructure, saw this endowment wither and the effects this had on the community. However, it also records efforts of the local people to rebuild social infrastructure, typically drawing the lessons of the past. Although the story of one village, the methods, results and policy recommendation have much wider applicability.

Speaker:
John Tomaney, UCL, UK

Discussants:
Borys Cieslak, GSSI, Itlay
Arianna Giovannini, University of Urbino, Italy
Louise Kempton, Newcastle University, UK
Estelle Evrard, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Grete Gansauer, Montana State University, USA)

Florence is one of Europe’s oldest financial centres. It was here where Luca Pacioli invented modern accounting in the 15^th century, leading to the proliferation of abacus schools, which spread financial literacy. It was here also in the 15^th century where the Medici set up one of the world’s first international banks with an extensive network of branches and operations. Florentine gold coins, called Florins, struck for nearly 300 years were one of Europe’s main currencies.

The session will revisit the role of networks in financial centre development in the past and evaluate the role of such networks in the present and their potential for forging more sustainable financial practices. In direct engagement with the main theme of the conference “Global Challenges, Regional Collaboration and the Role of Places”, the plenary will address the role of financial centres and their collaboration in contributing to sustainable development, and the lessons that history offers in this regard.

The session has two eminent speakers.

Professor Youssef Cassis is the world leading financial historian specializing in the history of financial centres, including Florence. He is a Professor Emeritus at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, part of the European University Institute in Florence, and Associate Member of the Oxford Centre for Global History at the University of Oxford, and lives in London. Lamia Merzouki is the Chief Operating Officer of the Casablanca Finance City Authority, and lives in Morocco. She is also the co-chair of the United Nations-led Financial Centers for Sustainability Network (UNDP-FC4S) and Vice-Chair of the World Alliance of International Financial Centers.

For more information on the speakers see:
https://www.eui.eu/people?id=youssef-cassis
https://www.theafricaceoforum.com/forum-2023/en/intervenant/lamia-merzouki/

We are proud to announce that Prof. Dr. Maria Abreu will be delivering the 2024 TESG lecture at the RSA conference. Prof. Abreu holds the position of Professor in Economic Geography at the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. Her extensive body of work spans a wide spectrum of topics within the field of Economic Geography, but they are all underscored by a strong sense of societal and academic urgency. Her research has delved into areas such as migration and integration, well-being and geographical discontent, as well as entrepreneurship and electoral geography.

In the lecture, Prof. Abreu will explore how multiple and often competing missions, activities, and strategies within the university influence the delivery of university knowledge to the external world through multiple channels, and how the regional context shapes this process.

Following the lecture, two referees will provide reflective insights, offering complementary perspectives on the content.

The TESG Lecture is an annual event organized by the Journal of Economic and Human Geography (TESG), the international academic journal of the Dutch Royal Geographical Society. It serves as a platform for a distinguished scholar in the field of Geography to address a contemporary societal challenge in the context of their academic contributions. We are delighted to host the fourth TESG lecture at the Regional Studies Annual Conference in Florence.

About the journal:
TESG, established in 1910, is one of the longest-standing journals in the field. It has been a leading international journal on contemporary research and debates in human geography. Building on a long tradition of empirical and theoretically informed research, the journal aims to provide a platform for the spatial social sciences. As such, it offers space for discussions, conceptual renewal and original research within the fields of economic, urban, cultural, political, development and population geography.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Maria Abreu
Two Referees – to be confirmed
Moderator: Prof. Dr. Sierdjan Koster, TESG editor)

This RSA Spotlight panel discussion will examine the evolving landscape of EU Cohesion Policy, anchoring the discussion in the wake of recent pivotal documents and scholarly contributions.

With the release of the High-Level Group of Experts’ Report on the Future of Cohesion Policy in February 2024, a comprehensive summary of policy reflections drawn from a broad spectrum of stakeholders and experts has set out key conclusions and recommendations for the future.  This is complemented by the forthcoming 9th Cohesion Report providing the latest diagnosis of the development status of EU regions, reflecting the Commission’s perspective on regional disparities and development needs.

The session will also discuss the critical insights offered by the new publication “EU Cohesion Policy: A Multidisciplinary Approach” which brings together a wide array of interdisciplinary academic evidence on the successes and weaknesses of Cohesion Policy.

Together, these documents create a rich tapestry of knowledge and perspectives, setting the stage for an informed debate on the future trajectory of Cohesion Policy beyond 2027. The session will be timely, taking place at a point when the evaluation results of the 2014-20 programmes are becoming available and at the midpoint of the much-delayed 2021-27 programme period.

In this context, the session will discuss the evidence for the effectiveness of the policy, and potential changes to the objectives, priorities, spatial focus and implementation model to ensure it remains a key instrument in the EU’s toolkit for promoting ‘harmonious development’ and reducing disparities among its regions in the rapidly changing European and global context.

Speakers
Chair Prof. John Bachtler – Professor of European Policy Studies and a Director of EPRC at the University of Strathclyde, UK
Prof. Riccardo Crescenzi – Professor of Economic Geography, London School of Economics, UK
Prof. Laura Polverari – Associate Professor in Political Science, University of Padua, Italy
Prof Ida Musiałkowska – Associate Professor of European Studies, Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland
Anna Wagner – Head of Unit for Policy Development & Economic Analysis, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, European Commission
Thomas Wobben, Director for Legislative Works, European Committee of the Regions

Although many researchers opt for further careers in higher education, there are plenty of other options for pursuing regional research outside academia. In this session, we bring together representatives of organisations that operate beyond academia and offer employment opportunities to regional researchers and scientists. You will learn more about these organisations and gain insights into career opportunities.

This will be an interactive session with time for questions and 1-1 discussions. Everybody welcome!