The Challenge of Regional Development in a World of Changing Hegemonies: Knowledge, Competitiveness and Austerity
For many decades, the Spanish Association of Regional Science has been promoting information, reflection and the analysis of regional issues across Spain from a range of academic and discipline-based perspectives. Among its initiatives, a crucial reference point is the annual Conference on Regional Studies (RER) that will be organized in Bilbao by the University of the Basque Country, Orkestra and the Deusto Business School of the University of Deusto coinciding this year (2012) with its 38th anniversary.
The XXXVIII Conference of Regional Studies will be organized in Bilbao on November 22-23, 2012. The venues of the Conference are the Deusto Business School (University of Deusto) and the Great Hall of the University of the Basque Country.
The RER is a specialized academic forum, which opens debate on any key regional themes that capture the interest of researchers and policy-makers focusing on regional policy. The papers and presentations that are given may refer to different subjects and be dealt with by the methodological approaches that are used by each participant in their scientific field: economics, geography, sociology, political science, demography, urban studies and regulation of territory, environment, and so on. In the Conference, presentations and papers will be given on methodological aspects, together with empirical assessments of regional issues, as well as focusing on the design and evaluation of policies.
The Scientific Committee is responsible for the selection of the content and special themes of the Conference. The languages of the Conference will be Spanish and English.
The title of the XXXVIII Annual Conference is “The Challenge of Regional Development in a World of Changing Hegemonies: Knowledge, Competitiveness and Austerity”. On this occasion, the regional theme is associated to the new hegemonies that have risen over these past years and that have been generating a context of change that implies a transformation of the main axis of interactions and power managed and controlled by the western world, towards new hegemonies that emerge with strength and power, and that show different social forms of regulating the system, particular social and power relationships, and a specific concept of competitiveness. In this context, the regions can respond either through the search for a more competitive integration in global markets or by demanding the opening of new national and European landscapes in which some protectionist policies may regain importance. As part of this analysis of the key drivers, a few aspects will be analysed such as, on the one hand, the role of the universities in regional development processes as one of the main sources of knowledge generation and application to the production sphere of regional territories and, on the other, the issue of the welfare state in the current recessive context with the need to limit the policies on the basis of principles of austerity and the effective and efficient utilization of public resources.
Both the Association of the Basque Country and Navarra and the Organizing and Scientific Committees would like to thank all the sponsors and participants for their contributions.
ISBN - 13: 978-84-695-5436-4
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