RSA WINTER CONFERENCE 2014
Sustainable Recovery?
Rebalancing, Growth and the Space Economy

London, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE | 18.08.2014
RSA | Regional Studies Association

The Regional Studies Association works with its international membership to facilitate the highest standards of theoretical development, empirical analysis and policy debate of issues at this sub-national scale, incorporating both the urban and rural and different conceptions of space such as city-regions and interstitial spaces.  

The Regional Studies Association runs a programme of international conferences and events based on excellence that has been growing steadily over the years and plays a major role in the Association’s aim in supporting its members disseminate their research. The RSA Winter conference 2014 will be held in the Holiday Inn London Bloomsbery. 
 

THEME OF THE CONFERENCE
This conference provides a platform on which to address the new economic order and its spatial manifestations.  The world has seen a series of shifts in socio-economic relations over the past decade, which has picked up pace since the global financial crisis of 2008, particularly in relation to the complex inter-related processes of industrialisation, urbanisation, and regional and local development. Is the mediation between economic logic and political institutions leading to new patterns of economic activity at a local, regional, national and global level? 

Is it possible to talk again—as  the leading economic geographers and regional development theorists did in the late 1980s and early 1990s—about the periods (Fordism, Post-Fordism, After-Fordism), places (Silicon Valley, Route 128, Baden-Württemberg, the Rhone-Alpes etc) and pathways (flexible specialisation, flexible accumulation, agglomeration economies) of economic development? Replaying this argument—scholars at that time argued that the coupling between spatial Keynesianism and Atlantic Fordism was being undone and replaced by neoliberal social regulation.  They saw that this resulted in the disintegration of economic activity into new industrial/political spaces. In turn, these processes were buttressed by changing modes of state intervention—welfare state restructuring, the shift from redistributive regional policy and planning to indigenous economic development, and the promotion of flexible labour market policy and the rebalancing of social relations.  Where are we now on these trajectories?  What have their impacts been on regional and local economies?       

Crisis in the Eurozone though is having highly differentiated impacts, with some places benefiting, while others have seen a worsening of problems. These outcomes appear complex, and relatively unpredictable, challenging prevailing narratives of places and their future.  This begs the question as to whether recovery is sustainable and/or is spatially selective growth occurring at a cost?

PAPER TOPICS
This Regional Studies Association Winter Conference 2014 presents a timely opportunity to discuss these issues, to establish the need and nature of future research imperatives, and to address the concerns and challenges confronting policymakers and practitioners.  The conference organisers are keen to attract papers and sessions which address a broad research and policy agenda, including contributions from any discipline which can offer relevant insights associated with the remaking of the world space economy and its shaping of our cities and regions. Papers which are collaborative, international or multi-disciplinary are especially welcome:

• Modelling and theorising the space economy: urban renewal and regional growth;
• New approaches to agglomeration and the clustering of economic life;
• The impacts of devolution and constitutional change on economic policy, and vice versa;
• Cities, Regions, or City-Regions: searching for scalar and institutional fixes;
• Post-suburbia and governance of metropolitan areas;
• New industrial spaces of the 21st Century and the future of old industrial regions;
• EU and OECD agendas for Smart, Inclusive, and Sustainable Economies;
• The future of work and work-welfare regimes: labour market policy, flexibility, resilience or flexploitations?;
• Creative city-regions and urban leadership;
• The politics and policies of urban and regional austerity;
• The lived experience of urban and rural change in times of austerity;
• Social enterprise, the third sector, and alternative economic geographies;
• Low Carbon Futures: Green deals and beyond;
• Methodological challenges for studying crisis, austerity, and the space economy.

PLENARY SPEAKERS
Thursday 27th November, 2014
Opening Plenary Session: 
• Professor Ron Martin | University of Cambridge, UK 
• Professor Philip McCann | University of Groningen, The Netherlands 
Panel Session 1
• Chair, Professor Martin Jones, University of Sheffield, UK
Panellists: 
• Professor Gillian Bristow | Cardiff University, UK
• Professor Henry Overman | London School of Economics, UK
• Professor Nancey Green Leigh | Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
• Professor Andrés Rodríguez-Pose | London School of Economics, UK
Friday 28th November, 2014
Panel Session 2 (Election Pamphlet):
• Professor Andy Pike | Newcastle University, UK
• Professor Ron Martin | University of Cambridge, UK (Further details to be confirmed)
Closing Plenary Session:
• Dr Amy Glasmeier | MIT, USA
• Professor Michael Storper | London School of Economics, UK, Sciences-Po, France and UCLA, USA

APPLICATION 
Please submit offers of papers in the form of 400 word abstracts (text only, no pictures, graphs or tables) through the Regional Studies Association on-line conference portal by Monday 18th August 2014. A full paper will be required 6th October 2014 at the latest, which can be any length, and contain pictures, graphs, tables etc. Further submission details to follow.

REGISTRATION FEES

Two conference bursaries are available for RSA members. For details, see the attached document on the right. 

ORGANISERS
Academic Organisers
•  Professor Martin Jones, University of Sheffield, UK  
•  Dr Pedro Marques, Cardiff University, UK
RSA Organiser
•  Elizabeth Mitchell

INFO & CONTACT
RSA Winter Conference website
 •  Elizabeth Mitchell (Organizer)
E-mail: elizabeth.mitchell@regionalstudies.org