Dear all, 

We’re looking forward to seeing you in Cambridge soon.

We have two keynote speakers this year:

Dr Karyn Morrissey, European Centre for Environment and Human Health at the University of Exeter, will give our annual Spatial Economic Analysis lecture (16 July, 2-3 pm), on the use of big data and spatial microsimulations in the study of health inequalities.

Dr Tom Forth, founder and CEO of imactivate, and Head of Data at ODILeeds, who give the Productivity Insights Network keynote (17 July, 2-3pm), on how big data, open algorithms, and new institutions can improve productivity policy in the UK.

A few more details also on our social programme this year:

16 July, 7pm - Annual edition of Calvin’s legendary pub quiz, in the atmospheric Howard Building drawing room at Downing College, with refreshments and informal dinner provided

17-18 July, 8-9am - Our new morning fitness sessions, taking place on the grounds of Downing College (with changing facilities available), featuring stretching and retro-aerobics, with complimentary t-shirts (please let us know your size when registering)

17 July, 7pm - Free evening to explore Cambridge, or join us for a real ale pub tour, featuring a small sample of the more than 100 historic pubs of Cambridge

18 July, 2-5pm - Excursion to Wicken Fen, a unique fenland wildlife sanctuary and historic landscape, and one of the National Trust’s oldest holdings (see here for an overview of the Wicken Fen conservation programme: https://bit.ly/2ekEz8q). We will be taking a guided tour with one of their conservation volunteers, and will have an afternoon cream tea in the nature reserve, before returning to Cambridge by coach in time for dinner

18 July, 7pm - Drinks reception in the Fellows’ Garden, and candle-lit dinner in the beautiful dining hall at Downing College, plus prize-giving ceremony for our early career and Moss Madden medal prizes

Some practical notes: please book your accommodation as soon as possible, because Cambridge fills up very quickly in July. We are holding a number of rooms at Downing College, and there are links to other accommodation options on our website: http://www.rsai-bis.org/accommodation.html. A small number of parking places are also available. Please let us know asap if you would like to book a parking place.

The deadline for the early-bird fee registration is the 7th June 2019, and this is also the deadline for speakers to be registered for inclusion in the conference programme. You can register online at http://www.rsai-bis.org/registration-and-payment.html

If you would like to nominate any papers for the Moss Madden Memorial Medal please do so by e-mailing Kim Swales with reference to the paper at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

As in previous years, we are holding a Twitter competition, with prizes for the best and most popular tweets about the conference, using the hashtag #rsaibis2019.

We are very much looking forward to seeing you all in Cambridge!

Best wishes,

Maria (Chair) and Justin (Secretary), on behalf of the organising committee

Dear colleague,

We would like to warmly invite you to participate in the 12^th International Conference on Planning Research – ‘Spatial Planning for Change’, organized by CITTA. The conference will take place at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) in Porto, Portugal, on the 20^th of September 2019.

The conference comprises plenary sessions and parallel thematic sessions on the following topics:

1. Social, environmental and economic dynamics: Exploring integrated perspectives
2. Urban form: Understanding its impact on daily life
3. Accessibility and transports: Changing behaviour, technology and infrastructure
4. Transformative planning processes: Rethinking institutions and policie.

For more information please visit the webpage of the conference here.

The deadline for abstracts submission is May 31, 2019. For the submission of abstracts please follow the instructions here. Authors of approved abstracts will have an opportunity to submit a full-size paper to be published in the conference proceedings book. The main language of the conference will be English.

Please do not hesitate to share this event with your colleagues and to contact us for further information!

Best regards,

Paulo Pinho (Chair)

Vitor Oliveira (Co-Chair)

António Ferreira (Co-Chair)

Dear All,

We are delighted to inform you that the RSAI Connect hub went live yesterday!

Please check here: https://rsaiconnect.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/

RSPP Call for Paper

Regional Development in Russia

RSPP editorial board and Russian Regional Science Association invite scholars to contribute to a special issue to display contemporary research on Russian regions and urban areas.

The themes and topics of the contributions include, beyond others: economic transformation of the Russian regions; living conditions in the Russian regions; spatial justice between Russian regions; urban agglomeration; local and regional innovative systems in the Russia; Development of the Artic Regions.

Interested scholars are encouraged to submit an article in the platform of Regional Science Policy and Practice https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17577802 until July 31, 2019. The papers will be on-line after accepted by a blind peer review process. The accepted paper will be compiled in a special issue on the fall of 2020.

Editors: Tomaz Dentinho This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and Alexander Pelyasov This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ECTQG 2019 -  EXTENDED CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit an abstract to the ECTQG 2019, the European Colloquium on Theoretical and Quantitative Geography, that will take place in Mondorf-Les-Bains, Luxembourg from the 5th to the 9th of Sept 2019.

The call for abstracts is now extended until the 30th of April 2019. Submissions are welcome for any topic of interest in quantitative and theoretical geography. In addition, 10 special sessions have been organised (See http://www.ectqg.eu/ectqg-2019/programme/#special-sessions) . 

Submissions are made via our EasyChair platform (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ectqg2019). 

Daniel Arribas Bel, Roger Bivand and colleagues have volunteered to offer a particularly attractive workshop on R and Py for Spatial Analysis. The workshop is dedicated to the registered participants of the conference and definitely a great opportunity. Please find information at  http://www.ectqg.eu/ectqg-2019/programme/#workshop  and on the Github repo created for the workshop ( https://github.com/rsbivand/ectqg19-workshop)

Last, but not least, we have a great line-up of keynote speakers who will offer inspiring talks on different key aspects of our discipline:

- Elsa Arcaute (UCL, United Kingdom),

- Isabelle Thomas  (UCLouvain, Belgium),

- Luc Anselin  (University of Chicago, USA)

- and Sara Fabrikant (University of Zurich, Switzerland) .

Should you have any question, please do not hesitate to contact us by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Looking forward to your submissions!

The ECTQG2019 organisers 
http://www.ectqg.eu/ectqg-2019/

RSPP Call for Paper

Regional Development in China

China has been experiencing a remarkable economic growth for three decades. Nevertheless, protectionism against Chinese exports, uneven regional development, income inequalities, greater migration pressures and doubts on the effectiveness of regional policies highlights knowledge gaps that require further scientific insights.

For this special issue on regional development in China we are particular interested in ex-post evaluation of past policies and ex-ante assessment of external shocks with sound replicable methods. The main aim is to join new thinking on regional development and regional policy looking at the Chinese reality, eventually departing from scientific mismatches that informed regional development policies with different levels of effectiveness.

Papers should be submitted to the regular review process of the journal (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rspp) until July 19^th of 2019. With a regular review process it is expected that the papers will be publish on the 2^nd Issue of 2019.

The coordinator of the Special Issue

Jian WANG, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.