19th APDR Congress

University of Minho, Braga (Portugal), 20-21 June 2013

It is our pleasure to announce the 19th APDR Congress, to be held at the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, from June 20 to June 21 2013. A joint initiative with the Innovaflow Conference.

Theme of the Congress:

"PLACE-BASED POLICIES AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY"

Place-based policies aim at solving persistent under-use of resources and reduce enduring social exclusion in specific places. This is achieved through external interventions and multi-level governance devoted to promote the supply of integrated goods and services tailored to specific regional contexts and to stimulate institutional changes (Barca, 2009). How to design and assess these policies? How to integrate sustainable development strategies when most policies are sectoral and problematic places do not have adequate institutions? How to promote institutional capital at the local and regional levels? How to move beyond the established administrative boundaries toward functional places? How to learn from the failures of former regional policies that promoted regions in crisis? During the congress, participants and reputed specialists will try to answer some of these questions.

This year's congress will count on a group of Special Sessions organized by several members of the Scientific Committee of the Congress on specific themes of regional science. The papers presented in these Special Sessions result from invitations addressed by the organizers and are not therefore open to submissions.

The call for papers is open and your participation is very welcome.

Speakers 2013

Prof. Eduardo Haddad
Department of Economics at The University of São Paulo, Brazil

Prof. Eric Vaz
Department of Geography, Ryerson University, Canada

Prof. Henri L.F. de Groot
Department of Spatial Economics (VU Univ. Amsterdam) and Ecorys (Rotterdam), The Netherlands 

Dr. Joaquim Oliveira Martins
Head of the Regional Competitiveness and Governance Division at the OECD

Prof. Peter Nijkamp
VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Mr. Remy Jacob
Director General of the European Investment Bank (EIB) & Dean of the EIB Institute

INNOVAFLOW CONFERENCE
"Innovation Networks in Portugal:  Flow Intensity, Knowledge Spillovers and Firm Performances"
During the last decades the amount of studies related to innovation systems has originated a great interest for policy makers, aiming for scientific background and technical support to choose the more adequate strategies for development. In general, the different approaches are consensual on the fact the knowledge creation and innovations are the drivers of change and growth for sectors and territories. But such a consensus is broken as soon as the complexity of innovation and knowledge are addressed; Innovation goes much beyond new product or process development due to its interactive nature and knowledge surpasses the firm attribute because it is also a spatial endogenous characteristic.
This conference will focus on four topics:
(1) To contribute for a better understanding of innovation in Portugal
(2) To clearly define cooperative forms within the existent networking and innovation systems
(3) To identify public/private partnerships and judge their added value for innovativeness
(4) To conclude on the concentration or dispersion level of innovation flows, evaluating in terms of policy effectiveness.
The call for communications is opened and your participation is very welcome.
International blind refereed publications, a national book edited by the Universidade do Algarve, the creation of an international network and discussion forum will be the outcomes for the selected papers.