2026 RSA Annual Conference Submitted Open Sessions

Session Organiser(s):
David Bassens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Matt Zook, University of Kentucky, USA
Michael Grote, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Germany

Session Description:

At a time when societies are increasingly dependent on digital technology for everyday and strategic action, the session seeks papers analyzing the positionality of firms, regions and states in digitizing and platformizing global economy. Existing frameworks such as GPN and GFN do not generally include the digital as a strategic and endogenous part of value extraction or regional development. While scholars are exploring ways to include digital technology as active and independent forces in the spatial development of the economy (Butollo et al., 2022; Foster and Graham, 2017; Grabher, 2025; Howson et al., 2022; Langley and Leyshon, 2025) making sense of the digital in the global economy both in the realm of production and finance, remains a challenge and provides the motivation for this call.

Building on our ongoing work at framing this phenomenon (Bassens et al., 2024; Zook and Grote, 2024) we propose the concept of Global Digital Networks (GDN) as a productive lens for understanding changes to the spatial organization of the economy. We define GDN as the structuring of materiality (infrastructure, hardware, energy) and digitality (data, algorithms) (cf. Amoore, 2018), mediated by a layer of technology (cloud services, virtual machines, APIs) by firms, states and regions that results in global networks of cross-territorial action that enables value extraction and insertion in GFNs and GPNs. In other words, we seek to insert digital technology as an active, albeit non-deterministic, force shaping economic geography, structuring both the tech sector and broader economic and spatial arrangements.

The goal of these session(s) is to bring together researchers grappling with firm-level strategies, state efforts to control and regional interdependencies that are emerging from the interaction between digital technology and the materiality of infrastructure, production, finance, consumption, logistics and extraction. We are deliberating casting a wide net including, but not limited to:

• Political economic questions: How do states seek to maintain sovereignty/power by regulation of the digital? How does this shape connectivity and economic geographies?
• Regional development questions: How does a region’s role in and centrality in the digital contribute to local economies? What are practices of strategic (de) coupling in GDN?
• Firm governance questions: How are firms managing data and digital resources across territories? How does territorial embeddedness (e.g., US vs. Chinese firms) bring advantage and disadvantage? How does insertion in GDN enable new modes of control in GPN and GFN?
• Micro-level questions: How is data is generated, enhanced and used across these dimensions? And what are the connections between infrastructural, technological, and digital data layers.

Submission and Contact
Please submit your abstract by 12 February 2026 via the RSA portal: https://lounge.regionalstudies.org/Meetings/Meeting?ID=565.

We are happy to answer any questions and looking forward to the session! David Bassens, david.bassens@vub.be; Matthew Zook, mattazook@gmail.com, and Michael Grote, m.grote@fs.de].

References

• Amoore, L. (2018). Cloud geographies: Computing, data, sovereignty: Computing, data, sovereignty. Progress in Human Geography, 42(1), 4-24.
• Bassens, D., Pažitka, V., Hendrikse, R. (2024). Banking in the cloud: mapping big tech’s global digital technology networks, Regional Studies, 58 (12), 2241-2255.
• Butollo, F., Gereffi, G., Yang, C., Krzywdzinski, M. (2022). Digital transformation and value chains: Introduction. Global Networks, 22 (4), 585-594.
• Foster, C., & Graham, M. (2017). Reconsidering the role of the digital in global production networks. Global Networks, 17(1), 68-88.
• Grabher, G. (2025). The Disruption Delusion: Machines, Networks, and the Platformization of Industrial Production. Sociologica, 19(1), 125–153.
• Howson, K., Ferrari, F., Ustek-Spilda, F., Salem, N., Johnston, H., Katta, S., Heeks, R., & Graham, M. (2022). Driving the digital value network: Economic geographies of global platform capitalism. Global Networks, 22(4), 631–648.
• Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2025). Embedded finance and FinTech disappearance, Finance and Society, 1–10. doi:10.1017/fas.2025.10020
• Zook, M., Grote, M. (2025). Global Digital Networks, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 18(1), 93-110.

Session Organiser(s):
Nayara Albrecht, UNILA, Brazil

Session Description:

The research literature on regional governance and development remains largely dominated by theoretical frameworks and empirical analyses rooted in the Global North, particularly those focused on the European Union and the United States. This persistent imbalance not only restricts the diversity of analytical perspectives but also reinforces a hierarchical structure in global knowledge production. This session seeks to disrupt this dynamic by centring perspectives from beyond the so-called developed economies—foregrounding research on regional governance and development in diverse contexts and drawing upon conceptual frameworks developed by scholars working in or on the Global South. Importantly, it also recognises that the very terms “Global South” and “Global North” are themselves contested and insufficient to capture the complexity of geopolitical, economic, and epistemological differences. As such, the session invites contributions that critically engage with these classifications, offering alternative analytical frameworks and reimagined concepts of development that move beyond traditional binaries. It aims to foster a more pluralistic and inclusive dialogue on how regions organise, govern, and pursue development in different parts of the world. The session invites scholars who challenge orthodox and traditional concepts of development and seek to explore new definitions based on a wider and more varied range of countries and regions. It encourages contributions that critically engage with inherited classifications and offer alternative analytical frameworks that reflect the plural and evolving nature of development experiences across the globe. Themes include, but are not limited to, alternative conceptualisations of development, regional governance models, institutional arrangements, and theoretical approaches grounded in diverse regional experiences.

Submission
Please submit your abstract by 12 February 2026 via the RSA portal: https://lounge.regionalstudies.org/Meetings/Meeting?ID=565.

#globalsouth #regionalgovernance #policymaking #decolonisation

Session Organiser(s):
Nayara Albrecht, UNILA, Brazil

Session Description:

Data is a critical asset for informed decision-making. Yet, despite the scale and importance of governments worldwide, most studies on data use continue to focus on the private sector. This session seeks to foster dialogue on how data and artificial intelligence can be harnessed to enhance decision-making in the public sector, with particular attention to place-based approaches that recognise local specificities and needs. Evidence-informed policymaking refers to the systematic use of the best available data, research, and practical experience to guide policy decisions—balancing rigorous evidence with contextual knowledge and political realities. Place-based approaches, in turn, emphasise tailoring policies to the unique characteristics of specific regions, rather than applying universal solutions, thereby improving policy relevance and effectiveness. The session invites both practitioners and academics to share case studies, strategies, and reflections on the evolving role of data in shaping policy. It welcomes theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that explore how to use and govern local data to design better, more responsive policies for different regions.

Submission
Please submit your abstract by 12 February 2026 via the RSA portal: https://lounge.regionalstudies.org/Meetings/Meeting?ID=565.

#data #policymaking #evidence

Session Organiser(s):
Ashira Beutler-Greene, The George Washington University, USA
Sarah Lieberman, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
Nazmiye Balta-Ozkan, Cranfield University, UK
Nicole Viola, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Session Description:

Novel aerospace operations require an ecosystem of support for success. Ensuring reliability through public and private sector investments, regulatory frameworks and infrastructure development, as well as understanding public acceptance for the novel aircraft overhead and possible adoption of new aerospace systems are all essential to enable innovation.

However, there is regional variation in innovation appetites which have the ability to influence budgetary allocations, coalition development, and testing environments. There are also a range of interactions between economic development at the local and regional levels and national regulation, which can create uneven approaches to energy transition, novel aircraft, and commercial space sector development.

This session considers regional stakeholder networks, relationships between local and national governments, and how innovation in aerospace functions as part of a region’s investment priorities. We welcome submissions which straddle interdisciplinary discussions of readiness for emerging aerospace technologies and provide a context for understanding current challenges and prospective opportunities.

Topics for discussion could include:

• Frameworks for balancing energy needs, infrastructure costs and economic development prospects
• Policymaking, regulation, and economics of the space sector
• System-level approaches to air and space transportation design, and how the stakeholder ecosystem responds to the complexity and integration of design and technology
• Tensions around novel aircraft certification requirements

Submission
Please submit your abstract by 12 February 2026 via the RSA portal: https://lounge.regionalstudies.org/Meetings/Meeting?ID=565.

#aerospace #aerospaceinnovation #futureofaviation #energypolicy #energytransition #innovationpolicy #research

Session Organiser(s):
Artem Korzhenevych,  Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), Germany
Sebastian Losacker, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Germany

Session Description:

Research on spatial dimensions of transformations towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption, including the role of innovation in driving such transformation processes, has received much scholarly attention in recent years (Truffer and Coenen 2012; Losacker et al. 2023; Hansmeier and Kroll 2024; Binz et al. 2025). Particularly important conceptual and empirical contributions on this matter stem from geographical innovation research, mapping and explaining the uneven geographical landscape of “sustainability-oriented innovations” (Mazzanti, 2018). The latter can be viewed as a broad taxonomic category including several widely used concepts: eco-innovation, environmental innovation, sustainable innovation, green innovation, clean innovation, among others. Moreover, an understanding of innovation and development has been put forward that sees the innovative capacity of regions not only in terms of their economic output, but especially in terms of the contribution to the development dynamics of all social structures on the path to citizens’ well-being and ecological sustainability, much of which is conceptualised as “transformative innovations”, “challenge-oriented” and “mission-oriented” regional innovation systems (Capellano et al. 2024; Tartaruga et al. 2024; Trippl et al. 2024; Castellacci et al. 2025).

While many relevant contributions have already been made in this regard (among others: Hansen and Coenen 2015; Grillitsch and Hansen 2019; Strambach and Pflitsch, 2020; Jolly et al. 2020; Kanger, 2022), further research is needed to better understand the role of regional factors (e.g. agglomeration effects, cluster formation, transregional production and knowledge networks, labour mobility, infrastructure and accessibility, roles of key local actors and governance structures) that lead to the emergence and spatial diffusion of sustainability-oriented innovations, providing an overarching understanding of the (regional) geography of sustainable innovation.

This Special Session aims to bring together researchers studying the emergence and diffusion of sustainability-oriented innovations in clearly defined spatial contexts, using both quantitative (e.g., innovation statistics) and qualitative (e.g., comparative case studies) methods to address the above-mentioned gaps.

References:

• Binz, C., Coenen, L., Frenken, K., Murphy, J. T., Strambach, S., Trippl, M., & Truffer, B. (2025). Exploring the economic geographies of sustainability transitions: Commentary and agenda. Economic Geography, 101(1), 1-27.
• Cappellano, F., Santos, A. M., & Dotti, N. F. (2024). Regional R&I ventures to tackle climate change: A new geography of challenge-oriented innovation landscape. Papers in Regional Science, 103(5), 100052.
• Castellacci, F., Evenhuis, E., & Frenken, K. (2025). Geographies of innovation and well-being. Review of Regional Research, 1-18.
• Grillitsch, M., & Hansen, T. (2019). Green industry development in different types of regions. European planning studies, 27(11), 2163-2183.
• Hansen, T., & Coenen, L. (2015). The geography of sustainability transitions: Review, synthesis and reflections on an emergent research field. Environmental innovation and societal transitions, 17, 92-109.
• Hansmeier, H., & Kroll, H. (2024). The geography of eco-innovations and sustainability transitions: a systematic comparison. ZFW–Advances in Economic Geography, 68(2), 125-143.
• Jolly, S., Grillitsch, M., & Hansen, T. (2020). Agency and actors in regional industrial path development. A framework and longitudinal analysis. Geoforum, 111, 176-188.
• Kanger, L. (2022). The spatial dynamics of deep transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 44, 145-162.
• Losacker, S., Hansmeier, H., Horbach, J., & Liefner, I. (2023). The geography of environmental innovation: A critical review and agenda for future research. Review of Regional Research, 43(2), 291-316.
• Mazzanti, M. (2018). Eco-innovation and sustainability: dynamic trends, geography and policies. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 61(11), 1851-1860.
• Strambach, S., & Pflitsch, G. (2020). Transition topology: Capturing institutional dynamics in regional development paths to sustainability. Research Policy, 49(7), 104006.
• Tartaruga, I., Sperotto, F., & Carvalho, L. (2024). Addressing inclusion, innovation, and sustainability challenges through the lens of economic geography: Introducing the hierarchical regional innovation system. Geography and Sustainability, 5(1), 1-12.
• Trippl, M., Baumgartinger-Seiringer, S., & Kastrup, J. (2024). Challenge-oriented regional innovation systems: towards a research agenda. Investigaciones Regionales-Journal of Regional Research, (60), 105-116.

Please submit your abstract by 12 February 2026 via the RSA portal: https://lounge.regionalstudies.org/Meetings/Meeting?ID=565.

#sustainability #transformation #regionalinnovation #innovationgeography @IOER

Session Organiser(s):
Jean-Paul Addie, Georgia State University, USA
Jen Nelles, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Michael Glass, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Session Description:

Regions are shaped by a wide variety of infrastructures that marshal the movement and management of goods, commodities, energy, and waste. These connective systems – literal and figurative pipelines – regularly bridge the spaces between where value is extracted and where it is consumed, bypassing but profoundly influencing communities along the way. Ports, by contrast, serve as vital placed infrastructures that both facilitate and regulate the movement of goods, people, and capital, simultaneously integrating local economies into transnational networks while reinforcing barriers (physical, regulatory, and socio-technical) that define territorial boundaries. Through pipelines and ports, places can be abruptly linked, or truncated, by networks and forces across incredible distances. Regional spaces and regional futures are defined in relation, or response, to such infrastructures.

In this special session, organized by the RSA Network on Infrastructural Regionalism (NOIR), we are interested in examining how key stakeholders and communities within regional envelopes leverage the presence of infrastructural pipelines and ports (as with labor markets, for example) and pursue infrastructural-based investments to release desired regional futures. We are also concerned with understanding what occurs to regions defined by infrastructural pipelines and flows but are removed from their material benefits, as well as port cities and regions that are ‘left behind’ by the locations of high-value transformation of commodities, and those that are marginalized by their conscious opposition to the transformations that infrastructure can compel.

We invite infrastructural and regional scholars examining the planning, governance, and maintenance of pipelines and ports to submit papers exploring different types of infrastructure and infrastructural regions, including:

• Ports, marine freight infrastructure, and shipping routes
• Blue highways: intercoastal and river freight transport networks
• Inland ports and logistics nodes
• Freight rail and intermodal terminals
• Planning and protesting pipelines
• Dams and reservoirs
• Energy generation and transmission networks
• Carbon capture and storage and other environmental remediation
• Remote infrastructure for extractive industries
• Wastewater and sewage

By exploring these infrastructural regionalisms engendered by such systems, we hope to encourage the interrogation of infrastructural and regional dynamics in peripheral as well as metropolitan regions while opening the conversation to different problematiques and varieties of governance. Centering questions of transport, transmission, and treatment also broadens our focus to include and account for private infrastructure and its influence on regional spaces. As such, we are inviting contributions that engage with ‘ports and pipes’ to unpack the key themes animating the NOIR network: interdisciplinary dialogues, cross-border governance, seeing like a region, and infrastructure and regional lives.

Please submit your abstract by 12 February 2026 via the RSA portal: https://lounge.regionalstudies.org/Meetings/Meeting?ID=565 and contact the sessions organizers at infrastructural.regionalism@gmail.com if you have any questions.

To find out more about NOIR, visit the network’s website: www.noir-rsa.com

Session Organiser(s):
Ralph Richter, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Germany
Ilaria Martiotti, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Suntje Schmidt, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Germany

Session Description:

For a significant proportion of the working population, remote work has the potential to de-couple the close spatial intertwining of home and work locations. With this new flexibility, cities, towns and villages are hoping to attract (new) inhabitants who have previously been unable to combine working in central (most often urban) locations with living in rather rural places. For high-skilled individuals who did not want to endure long commutes, moving to rural communi-ties was rarely a viable option due to lacking working possibilities nearby. The incompatibility between professional and private life has contributed to population decline and socio-economic disadvantage in rural regions (McCollum, 2025). However, the rise of remote working models such as working from home (WFH), hybrid working (HW) and digital nomadism (ILO, 2020; Eurofound, 2023) means that the strong barrier effect of long commutes is diminishing. Rural communities and second-tier cities are becoming more attractive places to live for skilled workers implementing new work forms. Respective workers spend more time on-site, either at home or in third places (Oldenburg, 1991) like collaborative work spaces. This may diversify ac-tivities in oftentimes mono-functional (sleeping) villages (Richter, 2018), increase the attrac-tiveness of second-tier cities and contribute to decongesting large cities and metropolitan are-as. These developments may breathe new life into rural communities and neighborhoods and intensify civil society engagement. In short, the increased compatibility of work and life in rural and urban areas, brought about by new working practices, may foster the revitalization of rural communities, peripheral towns and second-tier cities.

As plausible as these expectations are, initial empirical results are all the more sobering. McCollum (2025) shows, using England as an example, that new opportunities for remote work-ing tend to increase inequalities between the core and the periphery rather than levelling it. Brewer et al. (2022) and Farmer & Zanetti (2021) found that regions where people already had the opportunity to WFH and HW benefited the most. These include affluent commuter belt ar-eas rather than remote regions.

While these are interesting results, there are indications that they do not show the full picture. Firstly, many of the studies were conducted during the COVID pandemic and only examined the increase in remote working and decentralized living and working during or shortly after this period (González-Leonardo et al., 2022; Stawarz et al., 2022; McCollum, 2023; Vogiazides/Kawalerowicz, 2023). Empirical evidence for the post-COVID period is still limited. Secondly, research is dominated by quantitative studies at higher aggregate levels, which dif-ferentiate less between places with varying degrees of rurality and urbanity. Thirdly, the results obtained in a specific context may not be readily reproducible in other countries and regions. For example, while Knuepling et al. (2025) show that rural regions in Germany are benefiting from an influx of remote working residents and Tammaru et al. (2023) made a similar observa-tion in Estonia, McCollum (2025) demonstrated contrary results for England.
This open session is organized as part of the REMAKING Horizon project titled “Remote-working multiple impacts in the age of disruptions: socio-economic transformations, territorial rethinking, and policy actions”. The project examines the positive and negative effects of re-mote working on individuals, organizations and territories.

Against this backdrop, the planned session will examine questions such as – but not limited to:

• What spatial reconfigurations arise from remote working? For example, how do urban-rural linkages, multilocality and the interplay between globalized online spaces and the local environment change?
• In what ways are rural regions and communities impacted by new forms of remote work, e.g. regarding the demand for social and commercial services, new perspectives, civic engagement, and new labor potential?
• To what extent do rural regions and second-tier cities benefit from the influx of WFH, HW and digital nomads, both permanent and temporary?
• What characterizes the newcomers to rural communities and neighborhoods who work remotely?
• In how far do new arrivals in rural areas and second-tier cities affect social life and cohe-sion within communities?
• To what extent can collaborative work spaces help to support development dynamics in rural regions by offering a working environment for remote workers?

We appreciate contributions that address these and further questions from a theoretical and/or empirical perspective. Both qualitative and quantitative research contributions are welcome, as are studies that use newer empirical methods such as tracking, go-alongs, or digital diaries. In the event of numerous presentation proposals, we intend to divide the session into one part on remote work in urban contexts and one part focusing on rural areas.

References

• Brewer, Mike; Leslie, Jack; Try, Lalitha. 2022. Right Where You Left Me?: Analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on local economies in the UK. The Resolution Foundation. https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Right-where-you-left-me.pdf.
• Eurofound. 2023. Hybrid work in Europe: Concept and practice, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
• Farmer, Harry; Zanetti, Oliver. 2021. Escaping the City? How COVID-19 might affect the UK’s economic geography. Nesta. https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/Escaping__the_City_v6.pdf.
• González-Leonardo, Miguel; Rowe, Francisco; Fresolone-Caparros, Alberto. 2022. Rural revival? The rise in internal migration to rural areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. Who moved and where? Journal of Rural Studies. 96: 332-342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.11.006.
• ILO 2020. COVID-19: Guidance for labour statistics data collection: Defining and measuring remote work, telework, work at home and home-based work, 5 June, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—stat/documents/publication/wcms_747075.pdf
• Knuepling, Louis; Sternberg, Rolf; Otto, Anne. 2025. Rural areas as winners of COVID-19, digitalization and remote working? Empirical evidence from recent internal migration in Germany. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. 18(1): 227-248. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae033.
• McCollum, David. 2023. Covid geographies of home and work: privileged (im)mobilities? People, Place and Policy. 17(2): 82-99. https://doi.org/10.3351/ppp.2023.955439479.
• 2025. Post-pandemic geographies of working from home: More of the same for spatial inequalities? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12749.
• Oldenburg, R. 1991. The great good place: Cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community. New York: Marlowe.
  Richter, Ralph. 2018. Sozialer Wandel ländlicher Gesellschaften. in: Nell/Weiland (eds.), Dorf. Berlin: J.B. Metzler: 129-136.
  Stawarz, Nico; Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge, Matthias; Sander, Nikola; Sulak, Harun; Knobloch, Vanessa. 2022. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on internal migration in Germany: A descriptive analysis. Population, Space and Place. 28(6). https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2566.
• Tammaru, Tiit; Kliimask, Jaak; Kalm, Kadi; Zalite, Janis. 2023. Did the pandemic bring new features to counter-urbanisation? Evidence from Estonia. Journal of Rural Studies. 97: 345-355. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.12.012.
• Vogiazides, Louisa; Kawalerowicz, Juta. 2023. Internal migration in the time of Covid: Who moves out of the inner city of Stockholm and where do they go? Population, Space and Place. 29(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2641.

Session Organiser(s):
James W. Scott, University of Eastern Finland, Finland & Institute for Regional Studies, Hungary
Réka Horeczki Institute for Regional Studies, Hungary
Szilárd Rácz Institute for Regional Studies & University of Pannonia, Hungary

Session Description:

Borders, which can be interpreted in many ways, play a decisive role in the development of territorial structures and policies. Borders exert their essential influence as elements of the relationships between various active and passive actors. Border studies is currently experiencing a boom worldwide. The border issue, as a political concern and a development opportunity, will remain a permanent feature of the European Union, which is constantly changing, both in terms of its internal and external borders and border regions. The issue of borders as a political concern and as an opportunity for development will remain a constant in the ever-changing European Union, both in terms of internal and external borders and border regions. The study of borders can help us to better understand the processes of change that affect the countries of which we are citizens and the communities in which we live. From the perspective of Central and Eastern Europe, borderlessness is a traditionally researched topic that exists in many spatial dimensions.

This special session welcomes contributions that deal with the different as well as changing impacts of borders on regional development, cross-border flows and cooperation in any form. It is open to theoretical and empirical foci, comparative and case studies, as well as qualitative and quantitative approaches. Some more specific topics:

• Borders as development resources and as conditioning factors for development;
• Macroregions as borderlands (e.g. Central Europe, Western Balkans);
• Macro-regional strategies (Danube, Carpathian) and spatial imaginaries;
• European integration, Europeanisation, Schengen enlargement;
• Regional consequences of the European polycrisis & changing geopolitical thinking;
• Small state geopolitics in a multipolar World;
• Neighborhoods and borderlands as case studies;
• Socio-economic cohesion in borderlands, geographies of discontent;
• Conflicts at borderlands and their impact on local and regional development.

This session will be organized by the Research Group in Border Studies and Geopolitics of the Institute for Regional Studies.

Session Organiser(s):
Joanie Willett, University of Exeter, UK
Grete Gansauer, University of Wyoming, USA
Rhiannon Pugh, CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden
Madeleine Eriksson, Umeå University, Sweden
Michael Howcroft, University of Glasgow, UK

Session Description:

EdgeNet is the Regional Studies Association network for interdisciplinary research on peripheral places and regions. EdgeNet aims to advocate and amplify impactful research on the diverse places that are ‘non-core’ or on the ‘edge’ of core activities, including but not limited to rural, peri-urban, post-industrial, de-populating, and remote areas. In collaboration with policy makers, practitioners and local communities, we aim to explore new ways of analysing our edgy spaces that can help us to understand where we are now, how we got here, and what we can do in the future.

Over the past few years a combination of the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and political leaders who are no longer bought in to the post war liberal consensus has seen the world become more unstable.  In turn, this has meant that nations have become increasingly aware of geopolitical questions.

For peripheries, there are two intertwined issues which play out here.

Firstly, it means that some peripheries have become newly important as suppliers of resources as governments seek to re-shore production and supply chains to their own shores, or to regional allies.  This is interesting as peripheries have often been suppliers of resources, although this hasn’t always meant that resource peripheries have mattered in core social and political consciousness.

Secondly, we know that people in many Left Behind peripheries that feel overlooked in contemporary politics are being pushed towards extremist parties who amplify geopolitical instability.  Potentially, this means that the ‘discontent’ of ‘regions that (purportedly) don’t matter’ is contributing to the scenario which see’s other peripheral regions taking on a new (securitised) significance.

This Edgenet panel will explore these questions.  Potential threads include

• How is securitisation language being used, and where?
• Is there any difference between types of resources?  For example, is food security still important in regional discourse?
• Do we see any shifts in how left behind regions are being addressed?
• Do current geopolitical questions mean that some left behind regions become more marginalised?
• Do regions that have found themselves to be newly geopolitically important find themselves treated better?  Or do the old languages that marginalised and othered peripheries, just change their focus and emphasis?
• What happens to industries that are not securitised?
• Do these shifts impact on the kinds of skills that people invest in, and the kinds of work that local people do?
• To what extent is technological expertise being brought in from outside of the region, rather than fostering local skills innovation systems?
• Is it ok for regions to become militarised?
• Do these processes mean that peripheral and rural areas become better understood?  Or are they still framed through urban, and core lenses?
• What impacts do these processes have on local politics and feelings of discontent?
• Are some regions becoming moreleft behind and left out?
• What are the political mobilisations and flows that emerge in left behind regions, and how do these feed in to political mobilisations elsewhere?

Papers should consider novel analyses of development questions, policy learning from other regions, and empirical and theoretical material which address solutions and approaches to economic, societal, and environmental challenges in peripheries.  You might like to consider past and present examples of major investment opportunities that were capitalised on, or missed, or places which have been simply overlooked.  We welcome empirical and theoretical contributions

Session Organiser(s):
Susanne Frick, Cardiff University, UK
Paula Prenzel, RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany

Session Description:

This session invites contributions that examine the relationship between finance and regional and local development, with a particular focus on the role of state-led and hybrid financial arrangements as well as spatial variations in access to private finance. In the past decades, concerns over spatial inequality, uneven development, and the limits of market-based finance have renewed interest in public and quasi-public financial institutions as instruments of territorial development.

We particularly welcome papers that engage with the role of State Development Banks (SDBs), other state investment vehicles, and public–private partnerships (PPPs) in shaping regional and local development trajectories. These institutional arrangements are increasingly deployed to mobilise long-term capital, de-risk private investment, and support strategic sectors, infrastructure, green growth and place-based development initiatives. Yet their effectiveness, governance structures, and developmental impacts remain contested and uneven across contexts.

Contributions may explore how these financial set-ups operate in practice, the political and institutional logics underpinning them, and their impacts on regional economies, social outcomes, and territorial inequalities. The session is open to both theoretical and empirical work, including comparative, historical, and case-study approaches across different national and sub-national settings.

Indicative themes include (but are not limited to):
• The role of State Development Banks in sustainable regional and local development
• State investment vehicles, sovereign and sub-sovereign funds, and place-based finance
• Public–private partnerships and their developmental, financial, and governance implications
• Financial instruments for infrastructure, industrial policy, regional transformation and green growth
• The governance, accountability, and political economy of state-led finance
• Impacts of public and hybrid financial arrangements on spatial inequalities and development outcomes
• Comparative perspectives on financial architectures for regional development

The session aims to foster dialogue across disciplines and to critically assess whether and how public and hybrid financial institutions can contribute to more inclusive and territorially balanced development.

Session Organiser(s):
Sania Dzalbe, Umeå University, Sweden
Emelie Hane-Weijman Umeå University, Sweden

Session Description:

Over the past decades, economic geography has undergone significant transformations, from spatial analyses of production and industry to increasingly complex understandings of networks, labor markets, and everyday economies. Yet, questions remain about whose experiences and perspectives are centered, and how gendered relations of power continue to shape the production of space, work, and value.

This special session focuses on feminist and gender-sensitive approaches within economic geography by highlighting the multiple ways in which economic processes are embedded in gendered structures of labour markets, social reproduction, mobility, and everyday life. We aim to bring together scholars interested in expanding the conversations of economic geography, broadening established narratives and exploring how gender relations intersect with class, race, and place in shaping economic landscapes.

We invite theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes:
– Gendered and racialized mobilities and immobility, labor migration, commuting, and uneven access to movement
– Social reproduction and everyday economies, care work, household labor and transnational care chains
– Gendered division of labour, sex segregation in labour markets
– Workers access to work, career opportunities as well as risk to end up in precarious employment
– Feminist economic geography and epistemology, rethinking whose voices are being represented in knowledge production in economic geography
– Creative approaches to quantitative analysis, including novel techniques for mapping, measuring, and communicating gendered and marginalized economic spaces
– Intersectional and embodied approaches to economic life

By gathering diverse perspectives, this session aims to engage in a dialogue around how feminist and gendered analyses can deepen, challenge, and transform the field of economic geography today.

Keywords: Gender; Social reproduction; Mobilities and immobilities; Everyday geographies, Unpaid labor, Care work.

If you have any questions feel free to contact us!
Sania (sania.dzalbe@umu.se)
Emelie (emelie.hane-weijman@umu.se)

Session Organiser(s):
Luke Green Newcastle University, UK
Liz Shutt Newcastle University, UK
Louise Kempton Newcastle University, UK
Grete Gansauer, University of Wyoming, USA

Session Description:

Strengthening the foundational economy — the zone of the economy encompassing the social and physical infrastructures, goods, and services essential to everyday life (transport, food, energy, education, health, and care) — is increasingly recognised by scholars and policymakers as crucial for achieving inclusive growth, economic resilience and societal well-being.

While a growing body of research has advanced conceptual and empirical understandings of the foundational economy, its translation into concrete policy instruments and delivery mechanisms at local and regional scales remains uneven. This is despite a rapidly growing interest in foundational economy thinking among policymakers, which has driven several attempts at policy experimentation in local and regional contexts globally.

This session engages with the challenge of bridging the gap between theoretical and conceptual work on the foundational economy and the development of actionable policy recommendations and practical frameworks for local and regional policymakers and practitioners. We seek contributions that directly address the transition from research to real-world impact, focusing on how academic research can be translated into effective, place-based interventions that strengthen the foundational economy and drive more inclusive forms of local and regional development.

Papers may be theoretical, conceptual, methodological, or empirical in focus and may draw on any local, regional, or national context. We are especially interested in contributions that demonstrate the practical application and impact of foundational economy research on local and regional development, including that which has been informed through collaborative work with local or regional partners in policy, practice, or community settings.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
• Developing practical policy models (e.g., Local Growth Plans, regional industrial strategies) to strengthen foundational economies within and across regions.
• Intersections between the foundational economy and related concepts and approaches (e.g. community wealth building, everyday economy).
• Empirical analyses of regional inequalities in the quality, accessibility, governance, and affordability of foundational services.
• Workforce conditions in foundational sectors, including pay, precarity, skills development, and labour market restructuring.
• Improving productivity, sustainability, and resilience in foundational sectors, including challenges of measurement and evaluation.
• Co-produced or action-oriented research methods that generate policy-relevant insights and support learning across places.
• New data, indicators, and metrics to make foundational sectors more visible in regional analysis and policymaking.

By bringing together critical analysis and applied research, this session aims to contribute to a growing scholarly and policy agenda on the foundational economy by moving from theory to action and by facilitating policy learning across regions.

Session Organiser(s):
Dzamila Bienkowska, Linköping University, Sweden
Romulo Pinheiro, University of Agder, Norway
Markku Sotarauta, Tampere University, Finland
Vito Laterza, University of Agder, Norway

Session Description:

Regional green transitions are neither linear nor uniform. Some regions and universities act as agenda-setters, leveraging local coalitions and innovation ecosystems. Others sit in “waiting mode,” observing leading regions and institutions before committing to particular pathways. Still others must navigate structural pressures shaped by national funding systems, global supply chains, or sectoral dependencies (e.g., oil, minerals, tourism). These dynamics produce a map of regions moving at different speeds for different reasons, engaging different stakeholders, and encountering different obstacles.
Universities occupy a complex and often ambiguous position within these processes: sometimes conveners and vision-setters, sometimes cautious followers, and often institutions struggling to reconcile competing expectations. Building on insights from recent workshops and ongoing research, this panel seeks empirical and conceptual contributions that illuminate the multiple roles universities play in regional green transitions and how they can act constructively under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.

Important questions to consider include, but are not limited to:

• Under what conditions do universities become agenda-setters versus followers in regional green transitions?
• How can universities sustain a long-term strategic focus amid political and economic short-termism?
• What institutional forms best support deliberative and democratic debate about contested transition pathways?
• How can universities advance “just transitions” practically through curricula, research design, community engagement, or partnerships?
• What are the trade-offs and tensions between scientific/technical leadership and democratic, locally-grounded decision-making processes?

We invite submissions that:

• Map and explain the varied roles universities play in regional green transitions.
• Identify strategies universities use to sustain long-term visions, host democratic debate, support just transitions, and enable cross-disciplinary collaboration.
• Examine how national funding regimes, global supply chains, sectoral dependencies, and local political economies shape university engagement.
• Offer comparative or single-case studies that reveal why and how universities become leaders, followers, or intermediaries.
• Propose practical frameworks, policy recommendations, or institutional innovations for strengthening universities’ positive contributions to equitable and effective green transitions.

Topics of interest (non-exhaustive):

• Universities as conveners: practices for inclusive, reflexive, cross-sector dialogue.
• Institutional mechanisms to sustain long-term transition visions (strategies, governance, funding models).
• Universities and just transitions: methods to surface and address distributional and intergenerational equity.
• Cross-disciplinary and transdisciplinary models: barriers, enablers, and outcomes.
• Universities in resource-dependent regions (e.g., oil, mining, tourism): pathways, constraints, and conflict management.
• University relations with local, regional, national, and global actors: multi-level governance and coalition-building.
• Waiting modes and follower strategies: why some universities delay commitment and the political/economic logic behind such positions.
• University-led innovation ecosystems and their role in regional decarbonisation or resilience-building.
• Evaluation metrics and indicators for assessing university contributions to regional green transitions.
• Methodological reflections: co-production, participatory research, reflexive mapping, and process-tracing in transition studies.

Theoretical and methodological approaches (disciplinary or interdisciplinary) are particularly welcomed:

• Comparative regional political economy
• Science and technology studies (STS) and socio-technical transitions
• Institutional analysis and organizational studies
• Co-production and participatory action research
• Qualitative case studies, process tracing, and ethnography
• Mixed-method and quantitative assessments of impact and networks

We welcome contributions from scholars, practitioners, and university leaders with empirical, comparative, conceptual, or policy-oriented work that advances understanding of how universities can—realistically and ethically—contribute to equitable regional green transitions.

Session Organiser(s):
Vasco Barbosa, University Portucalense, Portugal

Session Description:

This open session explores how artificial intelligence and data-driven approaches are reshaping the spatial economy of cities, influencing patterns of urban growth, productivity, firm location and socio-spatial inequality. By bringing together contributions from regional science, urban economics and urban studies, the session examines how AI-based methods and big spatial data are transforming the analysis, governance and outcomes of city development across different urban contexts. The objective of this session is to critically assess the role of AI and advanced spatial analytics in understanding and guiding city development within the spatial economy. It aims to bridge methodological innovation with policy-relevant insights, highlighting both opportunities and risks related to productivity gains, uneven development, algorithmic bias and the governance of data-driven urban decision-making.

Key Topics
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning in spatial and urban economic analysis
• Data-driven urban growth, productivity and economic performance
• Firm location, agglomeration and spatial dynamics in AI-enabled cities
• Socio-spatial inequality and uneven development in data-driven urban economies
• Big spatial data, urban modelling and policy evaluation
• Governance, ethics and bias in AI-supported urban economic decision-making
• Comparative perspectives on AI, spatial economy and city development

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Spatial Economy; City Development; Urban Productivity; Socio-spatial Inequality; Data-Driven Urban Analysis

Session Organiser(s):
Muzamil Farooq, University of Stavanger, Norway
Huiwen Gong, University of Stavanger, Norway
Suyash Jolly, University of Ostrava, Czechia
Tim Rottleb, Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany

Session Description:

Over the past decade, economic geography and regional studies have experienced a growing ideational turn (Benner, 2024; Peck et al. 2025; Riekötter 2025), alongside a broader futures turn in human geography (Blackman, 2025; Crawford et al. 2025; Gong 2024; Jeffrey and Dyson 2021; Simandan 2025). Increasing attention has been paid to how various forms of ideas, such as imaginaries, expectations, narratives and visions shape economic action and spatial development (Roessler et al., 2025; Rottleb, 2024; Gong and Truffer, 2024), as well as to how anticipations of the future, rather than inherited structures alone, actively inform present-day strategies, policies, and investments (Cantó-Milà & Seebach, 2024). Together, these shifts have foregrounded the temporal, symbolic, and performative dimensions of regional development.

Accordingly, research investigates how regions are not only shaped by path dependence, material conditions, and institutional structures, but also by collectively imagined and strategically mobilized conceptions of how the future – supposedly – will, and should, look like (Oomen et al., 2021; Reinekoski, 2025). Concepts such as regional visions, growth imaginaries, green transition pathways, smart specialization priorities, and mission-oriented innovation policies illustrate how futures increasingly function as governing devices in regional policy and planning (Neuhoff et al., 2022). A wide range of futuring practices, including foresight, scenario building, visioning, experimentation, and backcasting, are now deployed to coordinate actors, manage uncertainty, and legitimize intervention in an era marked by climate crisis, digital transformation, demographic change, and intensified geopolitical and geoeconomic competition (Barendregt et al., 2024). These strategies and practices materialise in various spatial forms aimed at conjuring the envisioned future in the now, including purpose-built infrastructures, growth corridors, special economic zones and technology parks (Lawhon et al., 2023; Rottleb, 2025; Tups & Dannenberg, 2021).

At the same time, these future-oriented processes are deeply uneven. Regions differ markedly in their capacity to imagine, articulate, and realize particular futures, and dominant visions often privilege specific actors, sectors, and places while marginalizing others (Hajer & Oomen, 2025; Farooq, 2025). Often, enacted future politics, while claiming transformatory language, are rooted in existing power structures and stabilize the political-economic status-quo (Kallert et al., 2021). Futures are thus not merely anticipated; they are governed, contested, and distributed unequally across space. Yet despite the proliferation of future-oriented concepts and tools, existing research remains theoretically dispersed, methodologically uneven, and contextually under-examined. There is a need for more systematic and critical engagement with whose futures are being promoted and for whom, through which methods, and with what distributional and socio-political consequences.

This special session brings together these concerns by proposing an integrative focus on regional futuring and uneven geographies of futures. Building on and extending debates in economic geography, regional studies, planning, (cultural) political economy, and sustainability transitions, the session seeks to advance critical dialogue on how futures are imagined, negotiated, institutionalized, and contested at the regional scale. By foregrounding both regional futuring and uneven geographies of futures, this special session aims to foster a more explicit, critical, and theoretically grounded conversation on the role of futures in shaping regional development under conditions of uncertainty and polycrisis.

The session will consist of two segments: presentations addressing the themes outlined below (Open segment), followed by a panel discussion on the topic (closed segment). It invites conceptual papers, methodological innovations, and empirical research from diverse geographical contexts and scales. Submissions employing qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approaches are all welcome. We invite contributions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes:

Theories of Regional Futuring and Uneven Futures
• Conceptualizations of the future in regional studies and associated analytical categories (e.g. imaginaries, expectations, visions, utopias, hope, despair, anticipation)
• Regional futuring in relation to innovation, transitions, crises and resilience, and path creation
• Temporalities, uncertainty, and competing regional visions and contradictions.
• The role of history, memory, and inherited structures in constraining or enabling future pathways
• Regional innovation cultures shaping the regional futures
• Materialisation and failure of the regional futures

Methods and Practices of Researching Futuring
• Foresight, scenario analysis, visioning, backcasting, and other future-oriented methods in regional research and policy
• Participatory, deliberative, and co-creative approaches to regional futuring
• Experimental, speculative, and performative methods (e.g. living labs, urban and regional experiments)
• Methodological challenges in studying regional futures that are multiple, uncertain, and not yet realized

Politics, Governance, and Spaces of Futures
• The role of the state, firms, experts, and civil society in governing regional futures
• Sites and arenas of future-making
• Geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics shaping regional futures
• Justice, long term social acceptability, responsibility, and the unintended consequences of future-oriented regional strategies

Futures, Power, and (Counter-)Hegemony Projects
• Who gets to imagine, define, and institutionalize regional futures, and who is included and excluded?
• Futuring as a site of power, contestation, and depoliticization
• Alternative futures and futuring practices that challenge the status quo
• Futures producing uneven development

Universities and Regional Futuring
• Universities as knowledge producers and legitimizers of regional future visions and transition pathways
• Academic expertise, foresight capabilities, and the role of university-based research in regional scenario building and strategic planning
• Universities as institutional anchors in regional innovation systems: shaping expectations, coordinating actors, and enabling mission-oriented policies
• The politics of knowledge production: whose futures are prioritized in university-led regional research, and which regional voices are included or excluded?
• Tensions between academic autonomy, regional engagement, and the performativity of university-generated future visions
• Universities’ role in capacity building for regional futuring: education, training, and participatory methods for diverse stakeholders

#RegionalFuturing #GeographiesOfTheFuture #FuturesStudies #EconomicGeography #RegionalStudies #SpatialInequality #UnevenDevelopment #FutureMaking

References:

• Benner, M. (2024). An ideational turn in economic geography? Progress in Economic Geography, 2(1), 100014.
• Blackman, T. (2025). Performing the future of work: Examining discourses of the future of work and the ideal worker through event ethnographies. Geoforum, 167, 104461.
• Crawford, G., Christiansen, J., & Rojas-Marchini, F. (2025). Developing methods for future-gazing economic geographies. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 0308518X251347428.
• Farooq, M. (2025). Review of Captured Futures: Rethinking the Drama of Environmental Politics by Maarten A. Hajer and Jeroen Oomen. Regional Science Policy and Practice.
• Gong, H. (2024). Futures should matter (more): Toward a forward-looking perspective in economic geography. Progress in Human Geography, 48(3), 292-315.
• Gong, H., & Truffer, B. (2024). Changing from within: the interplay between imaginary, culture and innovation system in regional transformation. GEIST–Geography of Innovation and Sustainability Transitions.
• Jeffrey, C., & Dyson, J. (2021). Geographies of the future: Prefigurative politics. Progress in Human Geography , 45 (4), 641-658. Peck, J., Meulbroek, C., & Phillips, R. (2025). Ideas and ideation in geographical political economy. Progress in Human Geography, 49(3), 239-265.
• Kallert, A., Belina, B., Miessner, M., & Naumann, M. (2021). The cultural political economy of rural governance: Regional development in Hesse (Germany). Journal of Rural Studies, 87, 327–337.
• Lawhon, M., Follmann, A., Braun, B., Cornea, N., Greiner, C., Guma, P., Karpouzoglou, T., Diez, J. R., Schindler, S., Schramm, S., Sielker, F., Tups, G., Vij, S., & Dannenberg, P. (2023). Making heterogeneous infrastructure futures in and beyond the global south. Futures, 154, 103270.
• Riekötter, N. (2025). Contradiction as Method A Critical-Theoretical Approach to Ideational Economic Geography. Progress in Economic Geography, 100050.
• Roessler, M., Grillitsch, M., Miörner, J., & Schiller, D. (2025). Shaping opportunity spaces: the role of narratives in place leadership. Regional Studies, 59(1), 2471541.
• Rottleb, T. (2024). Building the Knowledge Economy, Transforming Cities? Transnational Education Zones as a Multi-Scalar Development Strategy in the Arab Gulf Region. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Rottleb, T. (2025). Offshore campus development and the worlding of Dubai as an international education hub. Urban Geography, 46(1), 180–200.
• Simandan, D. (2025). The future as an emergent problematic in geographical scholarship. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space,
• Tups, G., & Dannenberg, P. (2021). Emptying the future, claiming space: The southern agricultural growth corridor of Tanzania as a spatial imaginary for strategic coupling processes. Geoforum, 123, 23–35.

Session Organiser(s):
Han Chu, Kiel University, Germany
Huiwen Gong, University of Stavanger, Norway
Robert Hassink, Kiel University, Germany
Jesse Sutton, McGill University, Canada
Michaela Trippl, University of Vienna, Austria

Session Description:

In current times of crises, the notion of resilience is often used in economic geography and regional studies to analyse both the recovery processes from a shock and the building up of capabilities to deal with future shocks (Sutton & Arku, 2022; Sutton et al., 2023, 2024; Martin & Sunley, 2020; Gong & Hassink, 2017). However, so far, this literature strongly focuses on the resilience of regional economies, whereas much less literature has explicitly dealt with the resilience of clusters and regional industrial paths as part of a regional economy. Some studies empirically focus on clusters, industrial districts, or regionally concentrated industries when analysing crisis responses. However, these contributions often continue to conceptualize resilience primarily through the lens of regional resilience, treating clusters as empirical manifestations of regional dynamics rather than as analytically distinct units of resilience in their own right (Dueñas & Campi, 2024; Schmidt et al., 2022; Hervas-Oliver et al., 2011). While cluster research has a long tradition in economic geography (Chu & Hassink, 2022), the term cluster resilience has only emerged in recent years (Henry et al. 2021; Li et al. 2022; Rothgang and Lageman 2024). The same counts for the rich literature on regional industrial path development (Hassink et al., 2019; Breul et al., 2025), which only recently has been put in relation to resilience (Baumgartinger-Seiringer et al., 2025). This raises a more fundamental conceptual question: resilience of clusters and regional industrial paths should not be understood as merely a scaled-down version of regional resilience. The two operate through different mechanisms. For example, regional resilience research often emphasizes structural features such as related variety, sectoral composition, and regional institutional environments, cluster resilience may hinge more strongly on firm heterogeneity, the role of leading firms, collective and fragmented forms of agency, and the strategic interactions among different types of firms within production networks.
We see scope for studying the resilience of clusters and regional industrial paths from seven perspectives.

First, we see in particular scope for research of clusters and industrial paths from a transformative resilience perspective. This recently discussed form of resilience refers to a situation in which the severity of a shock causes an economy to shift to entirely new functions, structures, and performances (Sutton et al., 2023; Trippl et al., 2024). It is also discussed from a perspective of a window of opportunity for a sustainability transition and related innovations during and after crises. Rather than studying whole regional economies from a transformative resilience perspective, it might make sense to have a nuanced look at the transformative resilience of individual clusters or paths within a regional economy.

Secondly, and relatedly, the role of agency in clusters and regional industrial paths is key in understanding (transformative) resilience of clusters and regional industrial paths (Lemke, 2025). Change agencies are inclined to foster transformation, particularly at critical junctures providing opportunity spaces, whereas maintenance and reproductive agencies hinder it and reproduce existing structures.

Thirdly, in current times of poly-crisis, the resilience of clusters and industrial paths is increasingly complex, as clusters and regional industrial paths are often confronted with several crises at the same time, with partly contradictory effects. So far, few resilience studies in economic geography and regional studies have analyzed resilience from a poly-crisis perspective.

Fourthly, we see scope for studying the interrelations between cluster and industrial path resilience and overall regional economic resilience. Are some clusters and paths more resilient than other clusters and paths and how does that affect the overall resilience of a regional economy?

Fifthly, clusters and regional industrial paths are often embedded in global production networks / value chains. How do dependencies on international supply chains, geopolitics, or trade disruptions affect resilience at the cluster / path level? Contributions could examine the role of strategies like diversification, regionalization, or strategic autonomy in buffering resilience.

Sixthly, resilience is not only economic but also encompasses social inequalities and ecological impacts. How do resilience processes in clusters / paths affect workers, vulnerable groups, or the environment? Contributions could examine how productive links to the “just transitions” literature could be established.

Seventhly, policy-making, support programs, and institutional frameworks play a key role in fostering resilience. How do supranational, national and regional industrial policies, cluster initiatives or crisis management influence the adaptability of clusters and paths. Empirical analyses of policy effects and/or governance failures are particularly welcome.

Against this background, this session aims at presenting recent research on the resilience of clusters and industrial paths from a transformative, agency and poly-crisis perspective, but we are of course open to other new directions (e.g., the role of resilience of clusters in global production networks and global value chains). We welcome theoretical, conceptual, and (quantitative and qualitative) empirical papers.

We are happy to answer any questions and looking forward to seeing you in Gothenburg! Robert Hassink hassink@geographie.uni-kiel.de

References

• Baumgartinger-Seiringer, S., Páger, B., & Trippl, M. (2025). Regions in industrial transitions: a transformative resilience perspective on the uneven geographies of vulnerability, preparedness, and responsiveness. Economic Geography, 101(4), 191-217.
• Breul, M., Atienza, M., Grillitsch, M., & Pugh, R. (2025). Towards studying the developmental consequences of regional industrial path development. Regional Studies, 59(1), 2517884.
• Chu, H., & Hassink, R. (2022). Regional Clusters. In: Dilworth, R. (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Urban Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Dueñas, M., & Campi, M. (2024). Regional resilience during COVID-19: evidence from Colombian exporting clusters. Regional Studies, 58(11), 2129-2145.
• Gong, H., & Hassink, R. (2017). Regional resilience: The critique revisited. In Creating Resilient Economies. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Hassink, R., Isaksen, A., & Trippl, M. (2019). Towards a comprehensive understanding of new regional industrial path development. Regional Studies, 53(1), 1636–1645.
• Henry, N., Angus, T., & Jenkins, M. (2021). Motorsport Valley revisited: Cluster evolution, strategic cluster coupling and resilience. European Urban and Regional Studies, 28(4), 466-486.
• Hervas-Oliver, J. L., Jackson, I., & Tomlinson, P. R. (2011). ‘May the ovens never grow cold’: regional resilience and industrial policy in the North Staffordshire ceramics industrial district–with lessons from Sassoulo and Castellon. Policy Studies, 32(4), 377-395.
• Lemke, L. K. G. (2025). Reproductive agencies in regional economic resilience: insights from Covid-19 in Tyrol. European Planning Studies, 1-28.
• Li, P., Turkina, E., & Van Assche, A. (2022). The tortoise and the hare: Industry clockspeed and resilience of production and knowledge networks in Montréal’s aerospace industry. ZFW–Advances in Economic Geography, 66(2), 81-95.
• Martin, R. & Sunley, P. (2020). Regional economic resilience: evolution and evaluation. In: G. Bristow & A. Healy, eds., Handbook on Regional Economic Resilience, 10-35. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Rothgang, M., & Lageman, B. (2024). Is ambidexterity crucial for cluster resilience? Conceptional consideration and empirical evidence. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal, 34(3), 519-537.
• Schmidt, V. K., Zen, A. C., & Bittencourt, B. A. (2022). The influence of regional resilience elements on the performance of clustered firms. International Regional Science Review, 45(5), 503-533.
• Sutton, J., & Arku, G. (2022). Regional economic resilience: towards a system approach. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 9(1), 497-512.
• Sutton, J., Arcidiacono, A., Torrisi, G., & Arku, R. N. (2023). Regional economic resilience: A scoping review. Progress in Human Geography, 47(4), 500-532.
• Sutton, J., Arku, G., Sadler, R., Hutchenreuther, J., & Buzzelli, M. (2024). Practitioners’ ability to retool the economy: The role of agency in local economic resilience to plant closures in Ontario. Growth and Change, 55(1), e12716.
• Trippl, M., Fastenrath, S., & Isaksen, A. (2024). Rethinking regional economic resilience: Preconditions and processes shaping transformative resilience. European Urban and Regional Studies, 31(2), 101-115.

Session Organiser(s):
Bettina Knoop, TU Dresden (IHI Zittau), Germany
Robert Knippschild, Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development/TU Dresden (IHI Zittau), Germany

Session Description:

Processes of socio-spatial polarization have intensified in many countries. While metropolitan cores face growth-related pressures, peripheral towns and regions increasingly experience population decline, economic restructuring, and the proliferation of vacancies and voids, ranging from abandoned buildings and brownfields to underused infrastructures.

Rather than framing these vacancies solely as development deficits, this session conceptualizes them as contested, socially produced spaces situated at the intersection of demographic decline, uneven developments and power relations between cores and peripheries, and sustainability ambitions.

The session explores the role of vacancies and voids in peripheral areas in relation to sustainable social and spatial development. It asks to what extent such spaces can function as resources for alternative development pathways beyond growth-oriented paradigms, including social innovation, new forms of land use, energy transitions, and ecological regeneration. Particular attention is paid to the conditions that enable or constrain vacancies to become spaces of experimentation for transformative practices. These include issues of perception and relevance, property, access and appropriation, as well as governance structures, path dependencies and the distribution of decision-making power across scales and between cores and peripheries.

Contributions are invited that empirically or conceptually examine both the potentials and limits of vacancies and voids for sustainable transitions across different spatial contexts and scales. Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to:
• Conceptualizations of vacancies and voids in peripheral towns and regions
• Social production of vacancies and voids
• Questions of access and appropriation
• Governance structures, path dependencies and power relations
• Vacancies as spaces of experimentation for sustainable transitions
• Limits, conflicts and unintended effects of revitalizing vacancies and voids

#peripheralization #shrinkingcities #socialinnovation #geographyresearch #IZS

Session Organiser(s):
Amelie Bernzen, University of Vechta, Germany
Mirka Erler, University of Vechta, Germany
Sonja zu Jeddeloh, University of Vechta, Germany

Session Description:

Agriculture stands at a pivotal crossroad, simultaneously shaped by intensifying climate pressures, biodiversity loss, demographic shifts, changing dietary patterns, and rapid technological advancements (Bernzen and Braun, 2014; Dhillon and Moncur, 2023; Follmann et al., 2024). While the sector has long been and is still characterized by a strong path dependence (Brenner and zu Jeddeloh, 2024; David, 1985), it is also undergoing a profound structural transformation, increasingly influenced by digitalization, automation, and data-driven decision-making support tools. At the same time, (new) technologies are increasingly applied for human nutrition, for instance, in the creation of individualized dietary advices (Arshad et al., 2025; Belhadi et al., 2024; Mehta et al., 2025; Oikonomou and Khera, 2023). These shifts signal profound transformation of agri-food systems (Morris and Evans, 2008, 2004). Some actors see these shifts as a contribution to more dynamic, knowledge-intensive, and innovation-driven agri-food systems central to planetary health, food security, and human well-being (Darlan et al., 2025; Rossi et al., 2025; Trabelsi et al., 2023). However, especially geographers have also pointed out how new technologies also increase corporate power and deepen marginalization processes (Cieslik, 2025; Legun and Burch, 2021; Rotz et al., 2019).

This special session brings together interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners to explore how emerging technologies and food innovations are reshaping (regional) agri-food trajectories, (ostensibly?) legitimized by sustainability and resilience motives. We want to discuss if and how far drones, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled decision tools contribute to and influence an agroecological or sustainable intensification (Abe and Bernzen, 2019), more sustainable and healthy diets, or deviating versions thereof. Moreover, we are interested in how (newly emerging) risks are discussed within this field and which socio-political impacts the establishment of technologies might have.
In this session, we want to take a balanced look at the progress and pitfalls of (new) technologies. To this end, we would like to examine how these technologies affect regional and social disparities, how unequal conditions (e.g., unequal technical knowledge) affect access to them, and whether and how they can influence human health. Last but not least, we will also discuss whether and how political frameworks need to be designed in order to use (new) technologies for a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable agri-food system.

Connecting Technology, Food Systems, and Health

This session welcomes conceptual, empirical, and policy-oriented contributions on themes including, but not limited to:
• Technological innovation in agriculture, such as AI, drones, robotics, decision-making tools
• Integration of agricultural and health-related innovations, such as biofortification, nutrition-sensitive developments
• Resilience, risk, and sustainability within digitalized agricultural systems
• Governance, regulation, and politics in digitalized food and farming systems
• The geography of agricultural technological change and regional inequalities

References

• Abe, S., Bernzen, A., 2019. Alternative Landwirtschaft. Geographische Rundschau 3, 44–49.
• Arshad, M.T., Ali, M.K.M., Maqsood, S., Ikram, A., Ahmed, F., Aljameel, A.I., AL‐Farga, A., Hossain, Md.S., 2025. Personalized Nutrition in the Era of Digital Health: A New Frontier for Managing Diabetes and Obesity. Food Science & Nutrition 13, e71006. https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.71006
• Belhadi, A., Kamble, S., Subramanian, N., Singh, R.K., Venkatesh, M., 2024. Digital capabilities to manage agri-food supply chain uncertainties and build supply chain resilience during compounding geopolitical disruptions. IJOPM 44, 1914–1950. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-11-2022-0737
• Bernzen, A., Braun, B., 2014. Conventions in Cross-Border Trade Coordination: The Case of Organic Food Imports to Germany and Australia. Environ Plan A 46, 1244–1262. https://doi.org/10.1068/a46275
• Brenner, T., zu Jeddeloh, S., 2024. Path dependence in an evolving system: a modeling perspective. Cliometrica 18, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-023-00266-z
• Cieslik, K., 2025. The Dismal Harvest: The Uneven Landscapes of AI in Agriculture. Trans Inst British Geog e70043. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.70043
• Darlan, D., Ajani, O.S., An, J.W., Bae, N.Y., Lee, B., Park, T., Mallipeddi, R., 2025. SmartBerry for AI-based growth stage classification and precision nutrition management in strawberry cultivation. Sci Rep 15, 14019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-97168-z
• David, P.A., 1985. Clio and the Economics of QWERTY. The American Economic Review 75, 332–337.
• Dhillon, R., Moncur, Q., 2023. Small-Scale Farming: A Review of Challenges and Potential Opportunities Offered by Technological Advancements. Sustainability 15, 15478. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115478
• Follmann, A., Dannenberg, P., Baur, N., Braun, B., Walther, G., Bernzen, A., Börner, J., Brüntrup, M., Franz, M., Götz, L., Hornidge, A.-K., Hulke, C., Jaghdani, T.J., Krishnan, A., Kulke, E., Labucay, I., Nduru, G.M., Neise, T., Priyadarshini, P., Revilla Diez, J.,
• Rütt, J., Scheller, C., Spengler, T., Sulle, E., 2024. Conceptualizing Sustainability and Resilience in Value Chains in Times of Multiple Crises—Notes on Agri-food Chains. DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin 155, 29–48. https://doi.org/10.12854/erde-2024-692
• Legun, K., Burch, K., 2021. Robot-ready: How apple producers are assembling in anticipation of new AI robotics. Journal of Rural Studies 82, 380–390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.01.032
• Mehta, S., Huey, S.L., Fahim, S.M., Sinha, S., Rajagopalan, K., Ahmed, T., Knight, R., Finkelstein, J.L., 2025. Advances in artificial intelligence and precision nutrition approaches to improve maternal and child health in low resource settings. Nat Commun 16, 7673. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62985-3
• Morris, C., Evans, N., 2008. Agricultural turns, geographical turns: retrospect and prospect, in: Munton, R. (Ed.), The Rural: Critical Essays in Human Geography. Routledge, London. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315237213
• Morris, C., Evans, N., 2004. Agricultural turns, geographical turns: retrospect and prospect. Journal of Rural Studies 20, 95–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-0167(03)00041-X
• Oikonomou, E.K., Khera, R., 2023. Machine learning in precision diabetes care and cardiovascular risk prediction. Cardiovasc Diabetol 22, 259. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12933-023-01985-3
• Rossi, S., Gemma, S., Borghini, F., Perini, M., Butini, S., Carullo, G., Campiani, G., 2025. Agri-food traceability today: Advancing innovation towards efficiency, sustainability, ethical sourcing, and safety in food supply chains. Trends in Food Science & Technology 163, 105154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105154
• Rotz, S., Gravely, E., Mosby, I., Duncan, E., Finnis, E., Horgan, M., LeBlanc, J., Martin, R., Neufeld, H.T., Nixon, A., Pant, L., Shalla, V., Fraser, E., 2019. Automated pastures and the digital divide: How agricultural technologies are shaping labour and rural communities. Journal of Rural Studies 68, 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.01.023
• Trabelsi, M., Casprini, E., Fiorini, N., Zanni, L., 2023. Unleashing the value of artificial intelligence in the agri-food sector: where are we? Br. Food J. 125, 482–515. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-11-2022-1014
  

Session Organiser(s):
Lucia Piscitello, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Mafini Dosso, University of Johannesburg, College of Business & Economics, South Africa
Bo Nielsen, University of Sidney, Australia

Session Description:

Africa has long been described as “open for business,” yet its potential as a geographical cluster of hubs for investment, innovation, and strategic value creation remains underrealized. Persistent challenges —political volatility, economic instability, institutional diversity, and environmental pressures—continue to shape uneven business landscapes across the continent. Additionally, Africa’s economic geographies are deeply influenced by historical legacies, inadequate infrastructures, and governance systems that condition both opportunity and constraints (Baruah, Henderson, & Peng, 2021; Bertazzini, 2022).
The role of innovation and entrepreneurial dynamism is highly related to foreign direct investments, both inward (as foreign companies may originate knowledge spillovers and positive externalities that trigger virtuous circles of development) and outward (as indigenous African companies that succeed in foreign markets often bring back knowledge and growth opportunities in the local context of origin).
However, FDI, while expanding, often encounters political and institutional risks often associated with the need to combine global integration with a strong local embeddedness.
Indigenous African firms on the one hand struggle to join global networks, mainly due to dimensional constrains and dynamic entrepreneurial activities struggle amid regulatory uncertainty; on the other, large African companies — such as Dangote Group, MTN, and Sasol—are developing context-specific governance and innovation models that are redefining competition and challenge conventional theories of business organization and adaptation (Alford, 2024).
Additionally, diaspora networks are increasingly transforming from “brain drain” to “brain bridges,” enabling knowledge transfer, capacity building, and science diplomacy (Ito et al., 2025).
These dynamics, taking place in a highly heterogeneous context, position Africa as a vital setting for better understanding (and rethinking?) the interdependencies between the role of different actors (foreign firms and indigenous firms, entrepreneurial activities also from return migrants/diaspora) and the role of context-specificities (places and spaces).

Indicative Topics

1. Location and Strategic Advantages: How locational characteristics, spatial dependencies, and institutional contexts shape the internationalization strategies of firms operating in/with/from Africa, and the rise and success of entrepreneurial ventures.
2. FDI and Institutional Complexity: Why FDI inflows in several sectors, and outflows (especially those involving African multinationals) have not fully catalyzed transformation and positive externalities.
3. Migration, Labour Markets and Diaspora Networks: The contribution of diaspora scientists and entrepreneurs as knowledge brokers in fostering innovation, capacity development, and global linkages, addressing sociological and economic integration (Ito et al., 2025).
4. Knowledge Spillovers, Relatedness, and Innovation: How firms, both local and international, innovate under resource constraints but leveraging technological relatedness? How knowledge transfers across borders and knowledge networks (Ito et al., 2025).
5. Regional Integration, Connectivity and Spatial Clustering: How regional trade corridors, urban clusters, and infrastructural networks shape patterns of investment and business coordination (Baruah et al., 2021; Bertazzini, 2022; Shilpi et al., 2024).
6. Entrepreneurship and Innovation: How do entrepreneurial and innovation dynamics unfold within the diverse institutional and spatial environments across the African continent? What factors are driving or hindering the emergence of born-in-Africa technological and innovative ventures, and the related clustering patterns? How corporate-led entrepreneurship support organizations shape local innovation dynamics in African countries? (Daniels et al., 2021; Abdulai & Hussain, 2023)
7. Theory extension/refining/building from Africa: How Africa’s institutional and spatial diversity challenges and extends existing theories of international economics and business, economics of innovation and development, and economic geography (Barnard et al., 2017).

Keywords: Africa, Foreign Direct Investment, Regional Development and Growth, Innovation, Entrepreneurial dynamics, Diaspora and return migrants, Geographical Clusters

Session Organiser(s):
Mads Bruun Ingstrup, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Nils Grashof, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
James Wilson, Basque Institute of Competitiveness and Deusto Business School, Spain
Emily Wise Lund University, Sweden

Session Description:

Intermediaries play a central role in shaping regional development trajectories and innovation dynamics. Positioned between firms, governments, research organizations and civil society, the roles of these actors include facilitating knowledge exchange, coordinating collective action, and reducing systemic failures. In current transformative times, regional policy aims not only to promote economic growth and competitiveness, but also to guide regions through the significant changes required by industrial, green, and digital transitions, which in turn influences the demands on intermediaries.

This session explores the evolving functions, roles, forms, and impacts of intermediaries in regional development, with particular attention to how they are evolving to maintain their relevance in the face of contemporary challenges. Drawing on perspectives from economic geography, innovation studies and business studies, the session seeks to examine how intermediaries—such as innovation agencies, cluster organizations, innovation platforms, technology transfer offices, incubators, living labs, and public–private partnerships—operate across multiple spatial and institutional scales. Rather than acting as neutral brokers, such intermediaries can actively shape innovation directions, influence power relations and contribute to the construction of regional narratives and development pathways in ways that are especially pertinent in times of rapid transformation.

A key focus of the session is the diversity and contextual embeddedness of intermediary roles. Contributions are welcome that among other things:

• Analyze how intermediaries adapt to the specific challenges emerging in different regional contexts, including peripheral, rural and less-developed regions, as well as metropolitan hubs.
• Explore how intermediaries respond to the institutional complexities, path dependencies and place-specific capacities that influence regional responses to societal challenges.
• Address tensions and limitations faced by intermediaries, such as mission drift, accountability challenges, and dependence on public funding.

Overall, the session aims to advance conceptual and empirical understanding of intermediaries as strategic actors in regional contexts. We invite papers that shed light on when, how, and for whom intermediaries contribute to regional development and transformative innovations.

Indicative References

• Friedrich, C., & Feser, D. (2024). Combining knowledge bases for small wins in peripheral regions: An analysis of the role of innovation intermediaries in sustainability transitions, Review of Regional Research, 44, 211-236.
• Howells, J. (2006). Intermediation and the role of intermediaries in innovation, Research Policy, 35(5), 715-728.
• Ingstrup, M.B., Korsgaard, S., & Hansen, T. (2026). Paradoxes and dilemmas in local climate missions, Regional Studies, 60(1), 2591446.
• Ingstrup, M.B., & Damgaard, T. (2013). Cluster Facilitation from a Cluster Life Cycle Perspective, European Planning Studies, 21(4), 556-574.
• Kivimaa, P., Boon, W., Hyysalo, S., & Klerkx, L. (2019). Towards a typology of intermediaries in sustainability transitions: A systematic review and a research agenda, Research Policy, 48(4), 1062-1075.Mignon, I., & Kanada, W. (2018). A typology of intermediary organizations and their impact on sustainability transition policies, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 29, 100-113.
• Uyarra, E., Flanagan, K., Magro, E., Wilson, J., & Sotarauta, M. (2017). Understanding regional innovation policy dynamics, Environment and Planning C, 35(4), 559-568.
• Wise, E., Eklund, M., Smith, M., & Wilson, J. (2022). A participatory approach to tracking system transformation in clusters and innovation ecosystems—Evolving practice in Sweden’s Vinnväxt programme, Research Evaluation, 31(2), 271-287.

Session Organiser(s):
Stefania Fiorentino, University of Cambridge, UK
Grete Gansauer, University of Wyoming, USA
Crhistian Joel González-Cuatianquis, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy
Max Roessler, University of Greifswald, Germany

Session Description:

In recent years, debates on spatial inequality have increasingly moved beyond purely material indicators to engage with how inequalities are perceived, experienced, and narrated across territories. A growing body of research shows that objective disparities in income, employment, services, or opportunities only partially explain contemporary patterns of social discontent, political polarization, and declining trust in institutions. Instead, feelings of left-behindness, rooted in perceptions of neglect, unfairness, and limited future prospects, have emerged as a crucial lens for understanding regional divergence and place-based dissatisfaction. Therefore, this special session aims to bring together contributions that examine the subjective, emotional, symbolic, and narrative dimensions of spatial inequalities, with a particular focus on how individuals and communities interpret their position within broader territorial hierarchies. We particularly welcome contributions that focus on the perceptual dimension, the role of spatial imaginaries, and how they shape local identities, feelings of exclusion, and, in turn, visions of regional futures. The session is explicitly linked to the Regional Studies Special Issue “Spatial inequalities and feelings of left-behindness: perceptions, imaginaries, and policy responses”, to provide a forum for early discussion, feedback, and refinement of papers that may be part of the Special Issue. Participation is not restricted to those who submitted their work to participate in the special issue, nor does participation in the session imply publication, but selected contributions may benefit from targeted feedback aligned with the Special Issue’s aims and scope.

We are particularly interested in contributions which address the following topics:
• Theorisations and empirical examples of perceived left-behindness;
• Construction of narratives and imaginaries of and within ‘left behind regions’;
• Significance of regional identities, histories, or social memories within peripheralized places for perceptions of the future;
• Material effects of spatial imaginaries, emotional associations of marginality, or feelings of discontent/left-behind-ness on regional development policy and planning;
• Epistemological assumptions and methodologies to examine imaginaries, narratives and visions within ‘left behind’ places and policy;
• Policy responses and best-practice examples to tackle feelings of perceived left-behindness, and/or empowering local agencies, contrasting feelings of neglect and institutional mistrust, etc.;
• The commonalities and differences of spatial imaginaries and perceptions of left-behindness across a variety of geographies (e.g., Global North versus Global South).

Session Organiser(s):
Juste Rajaonson, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Sébastien Bourdin, IESEG School of Management, France
Karel Van den Berghe, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
Younghyun Kim, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Marcin Dabrowski Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

Session Description:

This session brings together contributions that examine how circular economy–oriented activities can be enabled and scaled within cities whose spatial organization, market structures, and regulatory frameworks remain largely shaped by linear development logics (Willams, 2021). The session will focus on the urban geographies of local circular activities, including repair, reuse, resale, sharing and rental services, and small-scale material recovery, which operate through everyday services and retail transactions rather than industrial-scale recycling.

Existing literature suggests that these local circular activities remain marginal and difficult to scale in many developed cities due to diverse barriers, including zoning, land-use, regulatory, policy and infrastructural barriers (Bourdin et al., 2024; Guibrunet et al., 2025; Dabrowski et al., 2025). Conversely, in many developing cities, similar activities are widespread, economically vital, and socially embedded, yet structurally precarious, informal, and largely unrecognized by policy despite functioning as key forms of livelihood and survival (Schröder et al., 2019; Valencia et al., 2024; Okyere et al., 2024). By juxtaposing these contrasting realities, the session aims to identify the enabling conditions (planning, infrastructural, institutional, and policy-related) that could support more viable, recognized, and just circular urban futures.

A central objective of the session is to revisit core traditions in urban and regional economics and urban planning, particularly theories of location choice, accessibility, land markets, and agglomeration economies (Bingham & Mier, 1993), and to question whether and how these frameworks hold in the context of circular economy objectives. The session invites contributions that critically assess whether established explanations of firm location and urban economic organization adequately capture the spatial requirements of circular activities, or whether new or adapted theoretical perspectives are needed.

Contributions may engage with, without being limited to, themes such as:
• spatial localization and clustering
• land-use and planning issues
• accessibility, proximity, and logistics
• informality and livelihoods
• labour and market dynamics
• infrastructures and facilities
• neighbourhood dynamics and displacement
• governance and policy frameworks
• comparative urban perspectives

Empirical and conceptual papers are welcome, drawing on urban planning, urban and regional economics, economic geography, development studies, or public policy. Contributions may examine how land-use regulation, infrastructure, access to demand and material flows, labour markets, and neighbourhood characteristics influence the localization and viability of circular economic activities, using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodological approaches.

International perspectives are encouraged in order to foster dialogue on how different urban contexts address the tension between inherited linear urban-economic structures and emerging circular ambitions. Comparative cases (e.g., Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia) are particularly welcome.

The session is part of a broader research initiative on articulating urban planning and the circular economy in Canada, led by the Department of Urban Studies and Tourism at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It is co-organized with scholars from Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), IESEG School of Management (France); Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and the Alliance of Guangzhou International Sister-City Universities (GISU).

Furthermore, the session aims to build international research bridges and lay the groundwork for an upcoming peer-reviewed special issue that reinterprets urban economics and planning theories to support local circular economic activities across regions worldwide.

For additional queries: rajaonson.juste@uqam.ca

#RSA2026, #CircularEconomy, #CircularCities

References

• Bingham, R. D., & Mier, R. (Eds.). (1993). Theories of local economic development: Perspectives from across the disciplines. Sage.
• Bourdin, S., Torre, A., & van Leeuwen, E. (Eds.). (2024). Regions, Cities and the Circular Economy: Theory and Practice. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Dąbrowski, M., Van den Berghe, K., Williams, J., & van Bueren, E. (Eds.). (2025). Going Circular: Unlocking the potential of regions and cities to drive the circular economy transition. Taylor & Francis.
• Guibrunet, L., González, E. B., Ruiz, M. H. M., Pérez, C. P. O., Villalón, V. A. R., & Patio, D. T. (2025). Spatial planning for a popular circular economy. Urban Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980251387826
• Okyere, S. A., Boateng, F. G., Abunyewah, M., & Erdiaw-Kwasie, M. O. (2024). Introduction: The Embeddedness of Circularity in Everyday Slum Living in Global South Cities. In Urban Slums and Circular Economy Synergies in the Global South: Theoretical and Policy Imperatives for Sustainable Communities (pp. 1-10). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
• Schröder, P., Anggraeni, K., Anantharaman, M., & Foxon, T. J. (2019). The circular economy and the Global South. London: Routledge.
• Valencia, M., Craps, M., Yepez, M., & Soliz, M. F. (2024). Sociomaterial networks for a systemic circular economy transition in an intermediate Global South city. Journal of Cleaner Production, 483, 144257.
• Williams, J. (2021). Circular cities: a revolution in urban sustainability. Routledge.

Session Organiser(s):
Sören Scholvin, Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile
Emma Galbraith, University of Cologne, Germany

Session Description:

Since the early 1990s, the share of manufacturing in total employment across much of the Global South has remained remarkably stable at around 20 per cent, whereas services have expanded from 40 to 50 per cent. A similar trend holds true for the sectoral shares in GDP, with services now accounting for almost 60 per cent. These patterns have fuelled debates about whether developing countries can leapfrog from agriculture and mining directly into service-based growth trajectories, and whether service-led development is replacing industrialisation.

Academic debates concentrate on processes of offshoring and outsourcing by corporations from Europe and North America. There are, undoubtedly, opportunities for Southern nations in these global value chains: employment creation and possibilities for upgrading from routine to more knowledge-intensive tasks. At the same time, offshoring and outsourcing are often associated with strong dependencies on Northern lead firms. Critics further argue that export-oriented service sectors may remain weakly embedded in national development processes.

Against this background, alternative pathways to service-led development are gaining attention. They include the independent internationalisation of Southern service firms, which appears to be focused on the near abroad and may trigger regional value chain formation. Another relevant topic is how service activities in the developing world are closely intertwined with infrastructures, manufacturing and financial flows.

The session brings together presentations on:
– opportunities and constraints for development associated with offshoring and outsourcing,
– the independent internationalisation of Southern service firms, including prospects of regional value chains,
– public policies and institutional frameworks that shape service-led development, and
– linkages with primary and secondary-sector activities as well as financial flows.

Session Organiser(s):
Lorenzo Mascioli, Sciences Po, Paris, France

Session Description:

Since the turn of the millennium, territorial inequalities have deepened across Europe, defying expectations of convergence and reigniting scholarly and policy interest in uneven development. While there is broad agreement among researchers and practitioners that development policy is essential to address these challenges, its performance continues to vary markedly across territories. This heterogeneity has been documented across different policy instruments – not only Cohesion Policy but also other EU- and national-level development programs – and across multiple stages of the policy process – as local communities mobilize financial and non-financial resources; as they use these resources to design and implement policy interventions; and as they harness these interventions to activate sustained development processes.

The dominant explanation for this uneven performance emphasizes institutional differences, but substantial limitations remain. Much of the existing literature focuses on institutional factors that are largely exogenous to development policy, such as the administrative capacities of national, regional, and local governments. More recent contributions, however, draw attention to institutional factors that are endogenous to policy interventions – that is, differences that emerge across space and time as interventions are planned, implemented, and maintained over time. These include variation in the regulatory frameworks adopted, the policy instruments deployed, and the ways relationships among policy actors are structured and sustained. Collectively, these endogenous factors can be conceptualized under the label of governance.

This special session aims to advance theory and empirical analysis of governance as a key institutional determinant of development policy performance. Contributions that engage with one or more of the following themes are particularly welcome:
• Theorizing the mechanisms through which governance shapes development policy performance across different stages of the policy process, and how these mechanisms vary across space and time;
• Developing innovative empirical strategies to document variation in governance arrangements and/or to estimate the causal effects of governance on policy performance;
• Proposing evidence-based policy recommendations on how governance arrangements may be reformed, at different territorial levels, to enhance the effectiveness of development policy.

#unevendevelopment #developmentpolicy #institutions #governance

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the session organizer at lorenzo.mascioli@sciencespo.fr

Session Organiser(s):
Robert Panitz, University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan-Triesdorf, Germany
Johanna Hoehl, LMU Munich, Germany
Lukas Pieroth, University of Koblenz, Germany

Session Description:

Numerous publications argue that the sustainability hype is over (Park & Grundmann, 2025; Rasche et al., 2025). In some regions, we observe a declining number of “green” investments (Bloomberg, 2025). Simultaneously, there is a rising number of doubts about the effectiveness of newly established regulatory instruments (Di Tullio et al., 2025) that are often treated as indicators of a sustainability transition. To some extent, private and public interests in sustainability transitions appear to have been replaced by other priorities. This situation can be understood as a moment of truth that offers an opportunity to reassess the robustness of sustainability policies and governance processes at both national and corporate levels. At the same time, it opens space to critically challenge existing theories of sustainability transition and transformation in industrial and regional change (Binz et al., 2025; Coenen & Truffer, 2012; Truffer et al., 2015).

Against this background, we invite original contributions that seek to unpack the mechanisms of governance instruments and policies involved in sustainability transitions and their outcomes, as well as theoretical contributions that help to explain the underlying processes. Contributions may range from empirical case studies and theoretical analyses to systematic studies of industrial change. We welcome diverse methodological approaches, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research.
The goal of this session is to provide an open platform for discussion and exchange on the governance of sustainability transitions.

References

• Binz, C., Coenen, L., Frenken, K., Murphy, J. T., Strambach, S., Trippl, M., & Truffer, B. (2025). Exploring the Economic Geographies of Sustainability Transitions: Commentary and Agenda. Economic Geography, 101(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2024.2445530
• Bloomberg. (2025). Global Renewable Energy Investment Still Reaches New Record as Investors Reassess Risks. https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/global-renewable-energy-investment-reaches-new-record-as-investors-reassess-risks/
• Coenen, L., & Truffer, B. (2012). Places and Spaces of Sustainability Transitions: Geographical Contributions to an Emerging Research and Policy Field. European Planning Studies, 20(3), 367–374. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2012.651802
• Di Tullio, P., La Torre, M., & Rea, M. (2025). Sustainability reporting regulation: Hypes, myths and reflections. Management Decision. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-10-2024-2462
• Park, H., & Grundmann, P. (2025). Institutional work after hype: The case of biogas in Germany. Energy Research & Social Science, 119, 103820. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103820
• Rasche, A., Jain, T., Aguilera, R. V., Vernis, A., Berrone, P., & Gonzalez-Perez, M. A. (2025). The Hype Is Over, Now What? How Corporate Governance Can Safeguard the Future of Sustainability. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2025(1), 11051. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2025.11051symposium
• Truffer, B., Murphy, J. T., & Raven, R. (2015). The geography of sustainability transitions: Contours of an emerging theme. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17, 63–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2015.07.004

Session Organiser(s):
Paolo Veneri, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy
Lewis Dijkstra, EU Joint Research Centre, Italy

Session Description:

Functional geographies are widely used in regional analysis to represent spatial interdependencies beyond administrative boundaries. Functional areas, commonly identified through commuting flows, have long offered a pragmatic way to operationalise these relationships. However, changing mobility and consumption patterns, digital connectivity, and shifts in daily habits increasingly challenge both the conceptual adequacy and the empirical feasibility of commuting-based approaches.
This special session focuses on recent advances in measuring functional geographies, both around cities and across sparsely populated territories. It approaches functionality from a multidimensional perspective, in which spatial interactions are shaped by employment, access to services, consumption and leisure, capturing the spatial and temporal organisation of everyday life. Rather than relying on a single dominant flow, contributions explore how different dimensions of functionality can be integrated to better reflect contemporary spatial behaviours.

A central theme of the session concerns measurement under data constraints. In many national contexts, commuting data are unavailable, outdated or poorly aligned with emerging patterns of interaction, while internationally comparative research requires methods that are transferable across heterogeneous data environments. The session therefore explores the use of alternative data sources and methodological strategies, including accessibility-based indicators, service catchments, grid-based approaches and hybrid frameworks.

Functional geographies are considered at multiple scales. The session examines approaches that aim for comprehensive territorial coverage across urban, rural and peripheral areas, addressing the systematic underrepresentation of internal and sparsely populated regions. At the metropolitan level, new methods for delineating cities and their areas of influence without commuting data are discussed, with applications ranging from single-country analyses to global mappings.

By foregrounding issues of measurement, scalability and comparability, the session aims to advance a more flexible and empirically robust understanding of functional geographies, with implications for regional analysis, spatial planning and place-based policy in diverse and rapidly changing territorial contexts.

Session Organiser(s):
Huiwen Gong, University of Stavanger, Norway
Roman Martin, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Tobias Wuttke, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Chun Yang, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong

Session Description:

The transition to electric mobility is reshaping the global automotive industry. At the center of this transformation lies battery production, which turns out to be a challenge, particularly for the European automotive sector. Access to battery technologies, raw materials, production capacities, and skills, is increasingly central to competitiveness, sustainability, and industrial sovereignty. At the same time, Europe is struggling to establish a fully functional and competitive battery industry.
This session invites papers that examine the evolving geography of battery and automotive production from the perspectives of regional studies and related disciplines, including innovation studies, political science, political economy, and management. We particularly welcome contributions that engage with regional innovation systems (RIS), multilevel governance approaches, and evolutionary economic geography (EEG) perspectives to analyze how multiscalar stakeholders adapt to, shape, or are constrained by the transition to electric mobility.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):
• The reconfiguration of the geography of battery value chains and challenges
• Battery industries as green industrial projects in regions: agency, power, discourses and structure
• China’s role in battery technologies, raw materials, manufacturing, and overseas investment and market expansion
• Industrial policy, geoeconomic competition, state intervention, and strategic autonomy in the EU
• Path dependence, path creation, and industrial branching into battery industries
• Relatedness, knowledge recombination, and capability building in regional battery industries

By stressing regional dynamics and evolutionary processes, the session aims to advance understanding of how battery production is reshaping the automotive industry in spatially uneven ways, and what this implies for regional development.

References

• Gong, H., and Hansen, T. (2023). The rise of China’s new energy vehicle lithium-ion battery industry: The coevolution of battery technological innovation systems and policies. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 46, 1-19.
• Hassink, R., Isaksen, A., and Trippl, M. (2019). Towards a comprehensive understanding of new regional industrial path development. Regional Studies, 53(11), 1636–45.
• Martin, H., R. Martin, and E. Zukauskaite. (2019). The Multiple Roles of Demand in New Regional industrial Path Development: A Conceptual Analysis. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 51 (8): 1741–1757.
• Trippl, M., S. Baumgartinger-Seiringer, A. Frangenheim, A. Isaksen, and J. Rypestøl. (2020). Unravelling Green Regional Industrial Path Development: Regional Preconditions, Asset Modification and Agency. Geoforum, 111, 189–97.
• Umar, I. A. and Yang, C. (2025) Geoeconomic Bridging Node in Global Production: Chinese Electric Vehicle Battery Investments in Morocco. Contemporary Social Science, 20 (2-3), 193-219.
• Whitfield, L., and Wuttke, T. (2026). China’s technological catch-up and leapfrogging in electric vehicles: A firm-level study of BYD and CATL. Progress in Economic Geography, 4(1), 100054.
• Yang, C. and Umar, I. A. (2026) Strategic coupling in global production networks under geopolitical risk: Chinese lithium investment in Nigeria. The Extractive Industries and Society, 26, 101849. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2025.101849.

Session Organiser(s):
Dieter F. Kogler, University College Dublin, Ireland
Rikard Eriksson, Umeå University, Sweden
Martin Henning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Session Description:

Nearly twenty years have passed since Boschma and Frenken (2006) posed the seminal question: “Why is economic geography not an evolutionary science?” In the two decades since, Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) has matured into a vibrant and influential research paradigm. A substantial body of work has deepened our understanding of technological change, regional diversification, path dependence, and the evolution of regional capabilities.

More recently, EEG has proven highly relevant in addressing pressing societal and economic challenges. New contributions have clarified the paradigm’s core conceptual elements, demonstrated its relevance in the context of the ongoing “polycrisis”, and strengthened links to policy-making, i.e., most notably regarding Smart Specialisation strategies, labor market transitions, and sustainable, inclusive regional development (Kogler et al., 2023). Building on the success and stimulating discussions of our previous special sessions at the RSA2025 in Porto, we aim to continue this dialogue by focusing on the next frontier of EEG research.

Despite these advances, critical questions remain regarding how EEG can further contribute to our understanding of the micro-determinants of regional change. To address these gaps, we invite empirical and theoretical papers that offer new perspectives on, or are closely related to, evolutionary economic geography. We are particularly interested in contributions that address:

• Skills and Technological Change: How do regional skills evolve in relation to green and digital transitions and shifting industrial structures?
• Inclusive Development: How can evolutionary processes be steered toward more inclusive regional outcomes?
• Micro-Foundations: What are the firm- and individual-level drivers that underpin regional economic evolution?
• Novel Methodology: We especially welcome submissions that approach empirical data through novel and theoretically profound lenses.

We look forward to your contributions and to furthering the evolutionary discourse.

References

• Boschma, R. A., & Frenken, K. (2006). Why is economic geography not an evolutionary science? Towards an evolutionary economic geography. Journal of Economic Geography, 6(3), 273-302.
• Kogler, D. F., Evenhuis, E., Giuliani, E., Martin, R., Uyarra, E., & Boschma, R. (2023). Re-imagining evolutionary economic geography. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 16(3), 373-390.