What about people in European Regional Science?

Vicente Royuela

No XREAP2012-12, Working Papers from Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP)

Abstract: The 51st ERSA Conference held in Barcelona in 2011 was one of the largest ever. Here, by examining the characteristics of the conference, this paper identifies the main trends in Regional Science at a moment in which the discipline is renewing its efforts to provide responses in a complex, globalised world in which cities and regions are acquiring greater and greater importance. This paper follows in the tradition of a long list of studies that have examined the nature of the field of Regional Science and draws on a broad array of sources of information: the delegates’ demographic details, the conference program itself, a satisfaction survey conducted among delegates, a quality survey addressed to those chairing the sessions and, finally, a bibliometric database including each author signing a paper presented at the conference. With this information we describe the ERSA delegates: their relative youthfulness; the areas in which women are taking on a more important role; the countries and regions of the world that have the most dominant profile in Regional Science today; the thematic areas that are being driven by professionals as opposed to academics; the relevance of regional economic growth and innovation as trending topics in the field; the growing frequency of co-authorship and, consequently, of scientific collaboration; and, finally, and perhaps most importantly, the continuous enhancement of the quality of the work being undertaken in the discipline. Indeed, following on from this description, the results of the regression analysis conducted show that for ERSA delegates what matters most is quality, and this must be the direction that future conferences should move toward. Ultimately, therefore, ERSA conferences are comprehensive, all-embracing occasions, representing an ideal opportunity for regional scientists to present their work to each other and to network.

Keywords: regional science; bibliometrics; ERSA. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N00 R00 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2012-05, Revised 2012-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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http://www.xreap.cat/RePEc/xrp/pdf/XREAP2012-12.pdf First version, 2012 (application/pdf)
http://www.xreap.cat/RePEc/xrp/pdf/XREAP2012-12.pdf Revised version, 2012 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2012-12

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