2026 RSA Annual Conference Submitted Closed Sessions

Session Organiser(s):
Franziska Sohns, Anglia Ruskin University, UK

Session Description:

This session is the Annual FinGeo–RSA Lecture, celebrating the ongoing collaboration between the Global Network on Financial Geography (FinGeo) and the Regional Studies Association (RSA), including their co-sponsorship of the journal Finance and Space. The lecture aims to bring together scholars interested in the financial, technological, and spatial dimensions of contemporary economic transformation.

The invited speaker is Professor Rick Carew, Adjunct Professor of Finance & Economics at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business. His lecture will focus on US–China technology competition and its implications for innovation clusters, venture capital, and the geography of Artificial Intelligence. Drawing on his academic work, policy engagement, and extensive professional experience as a former senior editor and correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong and China, Professor Carew will examine how state policy, Big Tech firms, and financial systems have shaped the rapid concentration of AI innovation in the United States and China.

The lecture will explore the role of venture capital and corporate balance sheets in fostering, scaling, or absorbing innovation, as well as the spatial dynamics of data centres, startup ecosystems, and technology clusters. It will also reflect on what these developments imply for other regions, particularly Europe, and what conditions might enable new challengers to emerge in the global AI landscape.

Speaker:
Professor Rick Carew, Adjunct Professor of Finance & Economics, Fordham University (USA)

Session Organiser(s):
Dariusz Wojcik, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Session Description:

This session would have the format of a fireside chat between Dariusz Wojcik and Carl Mossfeldt, followed by a Q&A with the audience. The central question and empirical puzzle addressed by the chat is why cities so often ‘stumble’ while running urban transformation projects, and the deeper causes of this ‘stumbling’ related to the sticky power of global financial networks.

Over a decade, Carl Mossfeldt, an independent urban governance advisor, held strategic roles across three major transformation initiatives in Gothenburg: the Bergsjön housing estate renewal, the RiverCity waterfront development, and the municipal Climate Transition Office. Each was adequately resourced, backed by political commitment, and staffed by competent professionals. Each ’stumbled’ in ways that surprised those involved: the city reached toward transformation, encountered what it would actually require, retreated into what existing arrangements could accommodate. In addition, he draws on insights from long-term collaboration with Yale School of Architecture on building an Urban Atlas for Gothenburg, which shows material traces of production accumulated over four centuries, canals, railways, housing estates, refineries. Dariusz Wójcik, Professor of Financial Geography at the National University of Singapore, would draw on examples from Atlas of Finance, and his collaborative work on global financial networks.

Together we will examine how the material and financial geography have diverged: cities have inherit infrastructure requiring collective coordination, but the trust relationships that once made coordination possible now run through financial centres whose logic doesn’t align with territorial outcomes. The necessary binding that trust presupposes has dissolved – but in ways that are not necessarily apparent. This creates room for an innovation theatre to fill the void, contributing to the underlying legitimacy problem. We will also discuss possibilities for restoring a better alignment and binding between the logic of the global financial network and local outcomes, through local finance, regulation, and trust-enhancing financial instruments and institutions.

Session Organiser(s):
Ilaria Mariotti, Politecnico di Milano,Italy
Carles Méndez-Ortega, Open University of Catalonia, Spain
Oliver Rafaj, University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia
Dimitrios Manoukas, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Federica Maria Rossi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Chiara Tagliaro, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Session Description:

This Session examines how public policies, grants, and support mechanisms across various governance levels—European, national, regional, and local—have influenced innovation and entrepreneurship in rural areas through collaborative spaces (CS). The literature has emphasized the importance of CS as a platform for developing activities that foster innovation and entrepreneurship in the local community. Key themes include the promotion of digital inclusion, the green transition, and building community resilience through brain circulation and talent retention in rural areas.

The session will address the following questions:

• How is innovation and entrepreneurship promoted in rural areas?
• What are the direct, indirect, and ‘ancillary’ policy tools promoting innovation and entrepreneurship applied in rural settings?
• What role do collaborative spaces play in the economic and social transformation of rural areas?
• How do public policies and support mechanisms influence the sustainability, resilience, and long-term success of rural areas?

By exploring these dynamics across multiple European countries, the Session aims to assess the effectiveness of policy-driven interventions in revitalising rural areas through CS, fostering economic resilience and sustainability, and enhancing social regeneration. Cases will be shown from Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Slovakia.

The cases will support the argument that CS serve as critical hubs for social and economic revitalization in rural areas, facilitating collaboration, skill-sharing, and community engagement. This policy Session will contribute to gathering systematic evidence on their role in mitigating socioeconomic challenges, enhancing digital access, and supporting sustainable development from the perspectives of the main CS stakeholders, namely: end-users (i.e., CS members), coworking managers, associations, and policy-makers.

Presentations:
1. End-users. Oliver Rafaj and Carles Méndez-Ortega
2. Coworking managers. Chiara Tagliaro and Ilaria Mariotti
3. Coworking associations. Dimitrios Manoukas and Federica Rossi
4. Policy-makers. Policies and initiatives on the European level. Simone Sasso and Ilaria Mariotti

Session Organiser(s):
Lukas Haefner, University of Kassel, Germany
Simin Yan, Chongqing University, China
Alois Humer, TU Wien, Austria

Session Description:

Bridging economic, social, and environmental divides across territories is essential to achieving inclusive, resilient, and sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11, UN, 2025). Urban–rural linkages represent the flows of people, resources, goods and services between urban centres and their surrounding rural areas. Governing these linkages amid territorial fragmentation in city-regions and cross-border settings has resulted in complex, multi-level governance arrangements. These arrangements, however, are often challenged by overlapping jurisdictions, misaligned policies, and uneven fiscal and administrative capacities. This special session therefore explores strategies to improve the governance of urban–rural linkages and address the challenges of territorial fragmentation.

Core questions include:
· What challenges arise from administrative and socio-economic fragmentation for the governance of urban–rural linkages?
· Which strategies and policy frameworks strengthen the governance of urban–rural linkages across fragmented territories?

The session brings together international, interdisciplinary contributions that examine urban–rural linkages through key governance arenas in which fragmentation becomes particularly visible: land take and settlement development, mobility and infrastructure, services of general interest, and socio-ecological conflicts. Across these arenas, papers analyse how governance strategies evolve under territorial fragmentation and shifting technological, political, and economic conditions.

Contributions address:
· Urban–rural linkages under territorial fragmentation in city-regions and cross-border settings (flows of people, goods, and services).
· Policy coordination and capacity gaps across jurisdictions, including misaligned sectoral policies and uneven fiscal/administrative resources.
· Land take and settlement development trade-offs at the intersection of housing, infrastructure, ecology and environmental protection.
· Comparative and network-based learning for governance innovation, identifying transferable approaches to city-regional governance.

This special session forms part of the RSA Research Network on Bridging Governance Gaps in City-Regions: Addressing Land Take and City-Region Building Through Comparative Research and offers an opportunity to engage with its three-year research agenda on institutional change and governance of urban–rural linkages in city-regions and cross-border settings. Contributions to this session may form part of the network’s envisaged special issue in the RSA journal ‘Territory, Politics and Governance’ during 2026-2027.

List of speakers: We propose organising the session as a double session structured into two thematic blocks: (1) challenges arising from territorial fragmentation for the governance of urban–rural linkages; and (2) strategies and institutional innovations that strengthen coordination and integration across fragmented territories.

Session 1
1. Anna Growe (University of Kassel), Alois Humer (TU Wien), Chen Chen (Tongji University), Simin Yan (presenter; Chongqing University), Eva Purkarthofer (Aalto University), Lukas Häfner (University of Kassel) — Bridging Governance Gaps in City-Regions: Promoting Discourse and Comparative Research on Land Take and City-Region Building through an International Interdisciplinary Research Network
2. Florian Albrecht (presenter; University of Kassel) and Anna Growe (University of Kassel) — Navigating Agglomeration Pressures and Emerging Inequalities in Interlinked Metropolitan Regions: Governance Responses in Rhine-Main and Rhine-Neckar
3. Jason Bell (University of the Witwatersrand and University of Johannesburg) — Left Behind: An Exploration of Uneven Urban-Industrial Development in Periphery Townships in the Gauteng City-Region
4. Eliška Vejchodská (Charles University) — Biodiversity, Land and Housing under Competing Public Interests: Rural Development in Protected Areas of Czechia
5. Zunjie Zhang (Harvard Graduate School of Design) — Ecological Stitching: Deep Bay between Urban and Rural

Session 2
6. Alois Humer (TU Wien) — The governance of services of general interest from an urban-rural systemic perspective: theoretical concepts and planning strategies
7. Wander Demuynck (presenter; KU Leuven), Ben Derudder (KU Leuven), Evert Meijers (Utrecht University) — In-between politics: Interplaces as discursive brokers in fragmented metropolitan transport governance
8. Theresia Morandell (EURAC Research) — Divergent city-regional perspectives? Using NLP to map how core cities and surrounding municipalities frame urban–rural linkages in local planning
9. Lukas Häfner (presenter; University of Kassel) and Anna Growe (University of Kassel) — Working Across Borders: Local authorities and Inter-Municipal Settlement Development in Germany