The Moss Madden Medal for 2017 was announced at the recent European Regional Science Association (ERSA) Annual Conference in Cork. 

The winner is Dr Justin Doran of University College Cork. The winning paper is called "US Metropolitan Area Resilience: Insights from dynamic spatial panel estimation" and appeared in ​Environment and Planning A. The paper can be accessed here. The paper is co-authored with Prof Bernard Fingleton.

Dr Doran is Director of the Spatial and Regional Economics Research Centre and Lecturer in Economics at University College Cork.

The British and Irish Section will host the 58th Annual Congress of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) in August 2018 in University College Cork. This is the largest regional science conference in the world and will bring close to 900 regional scientists to Cork. A series of workshops on important themes for the conference will take place in advance of the deadline for abstract submissions.
 
The first of these will take place in UCC and brings together leading researchers in the regional science and spatial aspects of wellbeing to share and discuss their work.
 
The workshop is open to everyone to attend and we look forward to seeing you there. If you would like to know more about ERSA in Cork in 2018 you can check the ERSA website, the Congress website, and/or follow us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates. You can also contact the Chair of the Local Organising Committee, Declan Jordan.
 
The call for special sessions is currently open and more details are available here.
 
Workshop Schedule
 
1.30pm Opening remarks and welcome
 
1.35pm Richard Rijnks, University of Groningen
“The Value of a Happy Home”
 
2.05pm Marta Zieba, University of Limerick
“What impact did the Great Recession have on the social norm to work? New evidence from panel data at the regional, local, and friend-group levels”
 
2.35pm Maria Abreu, University of Cambridge
“Feeling good? Household heterogeneity and spatial variations in entrepreneurial wellbeing”
 
3.05pm Coffee break
 
3.20pm Frank Crowley and Edel Walsh, University College Cork
“The importance of social capital for life satisfaction in European Regions”
 
3.50pm Finbarr Brereton, University College Dublin
“Spatial variation in Life Satisfaction”
 
4.20pm Close

​Supported by the Department of Economics, Cork University Business School

​Job advertisement - there is a vacancy for a full professor of Economic Geography (1,0 fte) at the University of Groningen, Faculty of Spatial Sciences Department of Economic Geography.

Details of the position are available here.

The Moss Madden Memorial Medal is awarded each year to the member(s) of the Section who author the best article on regional science published in a particular calendar year. 

The Medal for 2015 has been awarded to Eoin O'Leary and Don Webber for their paper The role of structural change in European regional productivity growth, published in Regional Studies (vol 49.9: pages 1548-60). The paper is available here. Dr Eoin O'Leary is a Senior Lecturer in Economics in University College Cork. Prof Don Webber is Professor of Applied Economics at the University of the West of England.

​Professor Eoin O’Leary (School of Economics) won the Moss Madden Memorial Medal for the best research paper on regional science published by a member of the Regional Science Association International (British and Irish Section) in 2015.  Eoin co-authored the paper which was published in ‘Regional Studies’, with Professor Don Webber from University of the West of England.  In the picture Eoin is being presented with the medal by Professor Kim Swales, Emeritus Professor, Strathclyde University, Scotland who chairs the committee of the association that awards this prestigious prize.

Dear colleagues,

The Regional Studies Association, in conjunction with the Regional Science Association International, British and Irish Section publish the journal – Spatial Economic Analysis. The Publications Committee for the journal is comprised of members of both organisations. The current Editor In Chief, Professor Bernard Fingleton will soon retire from his role and a new Editor is sought.

Spatial Economic Analysis currently publishes quarterly and is in its 10th Volume in 2015. A new editor is sought to take up post in the autumn of 2015 working on Volume 11 of the journal.

The announcement below is currently being publicised. 

Those interested can obtain further information below and to draw attention to the post among colleagues.


SEA - Call for Editor in Chief

Editorial and Production Procedures 

Spatial Economic Analysis is a pioneering economics journal dedicated to the development of theory and methods in spatial economics, published by two of the world's leading learned societies in the analysis of spatial economics, the Regional Studies Association and the British and Irish Section of the Regional Science Association International.

The Managing Editor Professor Bernard Fingleton discusses the journal and the field of spatial econometric innovations in more detail in an exclusive video. He also provides top tips to aspiring authors. Watch the video today!

As well as the video there is also a call for abstracts available here.

You are invited to a workshop to be held in Glasgow to mark the retirement of Professor Kim Swales, and celebrate his contribution to regional economics over a career that has spanned four decades. 

There will be a day of presentations from leading academics, including Geoff Hewings (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Jack Parr (University of Glasgow), Karen Turner (Heriot-Watt University), Deb Roberts (University of Aberdeen and James Hutton Institute), Peter Batey (University of Liverpool), and Kim Swales (University of Strathclyde).

The day will begin with registration from 9.30am and will run until 4.30pm. A buffet lunch will be served.

The workshop will be held in the Court Senate Suite, Collins Building, Richmond Street, Glasgow.

You can register for the event online at the Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/workshop-on-regional-economic-development-in-honour-of-kim-swales-tickets-9618793069

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Isobel Sheppard (fraser@strath.ac.uk).

We very much hope you will be able to join us for what promises to be a very stimulating and enjoyable day.

 Best wishes
 
Peter McGregor

At the Annual Conference in Cambridge last week it was announced that the winner of the 2012 Moss Madden Medal is Dr Simonetta Longhi, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex.

The Medal is awarded to the member or members of the Section that have written the article of greatest distinction published in any area of Regional Science in any journal during 2012.

Dr Longhi was awarded the medal for her paper Job Competition and the Wage Curve published in Regional Studies (46/5:611-20).      

Professor Gwilym Price, University of Glasgow and Professor Dominique Foray, Federal University of Lausanne, Switzerland will be giving key note speeches at the RSAI-BIS Annual conference in Cambridge which is on from the 20th to the 22nd of August.  Details on these speeches and abstracts can be found here.

Professor Philip McCann (Chair of the RSAI-BIS) has been part of the The Northern Economic Futures Commission which was established in July 2011 to spearhead an ambitious programme of activity and research over 18 months to look at the critical issues facing the economy of the North and set out a new approach to local and regional economic policy, driven by decision-makers in the North of England.  The Commission has recently published its report.  The Executive Summary of the report is available here while the report itself can be downloaded here.