Doctor Max Roessler has been chosen as the winner of the 2026 RSAI Dissertation Award for his work "Opportunity Spaces and Development Traps of Green Transitions in Peripheral Regions: Narratives, Place Leadership, and System-Level Agency."

The dissertation asks a central question in regional science: why do regions with similar structural conditions differ in their capacity to recognize and realize development opportunities? Examining this in the context of green transitions, it brings the literature on development traps and path dependence together with recent work on opportunity spaces, change agency, place leadership, and system-level agency.

The empirical work is excellent, drawing on extensive interviews with regional stakeholders in four peripheral regions of Germany, observations from regional events, and two cross-regional focus groups. As one committee member put it, narratives are treated "not as background colour but as an indicator of regional trajectory," and they are examined through a transparent multidimensional narrative analysis that can be applied elsewhere. A key finding is that regions can become locked into "maintenance agency" when negative narratives dominate, even where green transitions have opened real opportunities. This gives the development-trap literature micro-level mechanisms that existing indicators cannot capture. Dr Roessler has also demonstrated his independence as a researcher, with two single-authored articles among the three published in leading journals in the regional science field, and has received several awards for his work. 

Overall, the dissertation is an outstanding and timely piece of work that deepens our understanding of place-sensitive green transitions, and we look forward to his future contributions to the RSAI and ERSA communities.

Dr Roessler was awarded his doctorate (Dr. rer. nat., summa cum laude) by the University of Greifswald in October 2025, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Daniel Schiller.