RSA Annual Conference Bursary Report: Financing Regional Development and Change

Bursary Reflection

Gothenburg at midsummer is beautiful. Long sunny days. Lots of people out and about late into the evening. A thoroughly walkable city. The locals say that the city is quieter than usual, as many people have headed to the countryside for the midsummer break. But the population ticked up again (very slightly!) with the arrival of the Regional Studies Annual Conference: hundreds of scholars from around the world, with a huge range of academic specialities. There are geographers, economists, and economic geographers, political scientists, sociologists, development scholars, environmental specialists, public policy researchers, and many others.

As a first-time attendee at the RSA’s annual conference, this bridging of disciplines was a real eye-opener. Of course, many academic conferences offer diversity of perspectives, but RSA’s brilliance lies in uniting this diversity around a clear common focus: place. The focus on place is also for many a commitment to a society, economy, and politics that recognises the fundamental importance of geographical location. Scholars at the RSA conference are connected by the shared recognition that each place has its own unique history, geography, strengths, weaknesses, specialisms, and culture.

My own contribution to the RSA conference came through two papers. First, with my colleague Charlotte Hoole, we presented a paper on place-based governance capacity. From our analysis of England’s decentralisation agenda, we called for more attention to the different abilities of places to self-govern. Crucially, we argued that attempts by national government to build local capacity could actually exacerbate the problem if they do not target capacity-building programmes at those places that need them most.

My other paper was part of a panel organised by Andy Pike and Mia Gray on local government in crisis. The paper outlined concerns about the increasing use of subnational territorial reorganisation as a policy tool used by national governments. Although this work was much earlier in its development, the panel turned out to be one of those that starts a really excellent shared discussion. With Malin Ronnblom, Alexandr Novacek, Heather Whiteside, Laura Clemens, Crispin Fuller, and Simon Dudek, we engaged in a rich and fascinating conversation about the power of local government to respond in a time of crisis. A fascinating strand of this debate was on whether and how local governments exercise ‘agency’ in the face of so many structural constraints.

One of my favourite things about academic conferences is attending a panel that only looks tangentially relevant to my research only to discover something completely revelatory. This happened several times at the RSA in Gothenburg.

The RSA’s initiative of having an early career plenary speaker really paid off with an excellent talk by Kristin Smette Gulbrandsen. By exploring how bottom-up groups in Norway forge alternative regional identities, her work showed how regional identities are contested from above and below. In another session, Diana Stirbu continued the focus on bottom-up perspectives with her important study on how young Londoners are engaged by policymakers but then feel disenchanted by the lack of real change. Matthew Gilmour-Young was another speaker who focused on citizen perspectives, with his innovative work bringing the public into the research process itself. All these papers underlined the need for policymakers to recognise and act on the voice of citizens in regional governance.

Rethinking how regions are governed depends not just on listening to citizens but also creating visions of alternative futures. This was another strand of the conference that really provoked my thinking. Anne Green’s paper exploring governance strategy in England’s West Midlands showed how lots of competing visions can push policymakers to be more ambitious but can also create confusion and complexity. Timothy Joubert’s work on community wealth building in Leeds questioned the extent to which such visions actually make a difference in practice, while Peter Moore outlined similar scepticism in his planned research on the Future Generations Act in Wales. All three papers – and several others – underscored the importance of identifying clear and radical mechanisms of change that go beyond the broadbrush visions that are a necessary but no means sufficient step towards better regional futures.

I left Gothenburg with a brain packed full of new ideas and a renewed motivation to make a positive difference to how we understand and govern regions. I also left with a much stronger sense of being part of a community of scholars who share this motivation. I now look forward to my next RSA conference in London in November, and in Madrid next summer. In the meantime, there’s work to do!

Conference panels attended

About the author

Jack Newman is a Lecturer in Politics and Public Administration at the University of Liverpool. He joined the university in August 2026 and works across the Department of Politics and the Institute for Irish Studies. Jack previously held research posts at the universities of Manchester, Bristol, Cambridge, Surrey, and Leeds. His research covers politics and public policy, with a specialisation in decentralisation and place-based approaches.