RESEARCH AND CONSULTANCY - EU regional policy

The conference “Regions: The Dilemmas of Integration and Competition?” was held at the University of Economics Prague at the end of May 2008. The conference was organized by Regional Studies Association in co-operation with IEEP, Institute for Economic and Environmental Policy, the Faculty of Economics and IREAS, Institute for Structural Policy.

Regional Studies Association is a major, international scientific platform in the regional sciences. The Association publishes several highly ranked publications (such as, Regional Studies, the journal which has an impact factor higher than 1.7). The conference is organised annually within Europe. This conference was hosted in Lisbon (2007) and Leuven (2006). Prague and the University of Economics Prague join the University of Gdansk, Poland as the first places in Central and Eastern Europe, to host this prestigious event. The conferences usually host 300 or more scientists from more than 40 countries of the whole World.

In Prague, more than 450 participants took part and more than 400 presented their academic research or gave insights to their policy or practice role within the field. The conference is one of the largest and most successful of the Association’s events to date.

Programme of the conference:
The conference was divided in to 14 gateways. There were topics such as EU Cohesion policy; the environment in regional development; urban and rural development and the participation and cooperation of NGOs with the public sector. For more details and scientific programme have a look here.

The conference was not only an opportunity to discuss the results of scientific teams who have been working over the last year, but also an opportunity to find new contacts and start co-operation on new research projects. For participants from EU member countries a major interest in the conference were the discussions around the future of EU Cohesion policy.

The importance of the conference was underlined by attendance of two ministers of the Czech government at the plenary sessions. Both the Vice-Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development Jiri Čunek and Minister for Agriculture Petr Gandalovič made key note presentations at the event.