Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YD, UK.
E-mail: ias@lancaster.ac.uk
Workshop: The Knowledge Based Economy and the Re-Invention of Regions
1-2 June 2006
Please note, this research programme has now concluded and these pages are maintained here as a record of the activities of the Institute for Advanced Studies.
Contact: Ramon Ribera Fumaz
Objectives
Urban
governance and the spatial form of the Western European national state
have been changing radically in the last twenty years. Economic restructuring,
globalisation and the processes of European integration have emphasised
the role of urban/regional production systems as a way of gaining competitiveness,
and therefore wealth, for states in the European economy. In a world where
the national state is no longer the primary scale of organising the economy,
states have been increasingly rescaling some of their functions upwards
(e.g. monetary policy to the European Union) and downwards (e.g. regionalisation
and devolution of British and European policies). Thus, the region has
become an important scale of both economic and political action.
However, as these strategies have been increasingly dominated by growing belief that a new knowledge-based-economy (KBE) is emerging, what constitutes the region has been challenged and transformed. Rather than assuming KBE processes to be spatially bounded – e.g. the region – it is understood have an unbounded form – e.g. the network. Hence, it is argued that the regional spaces of the KBE are polycentric networks interconnected with other places.
As scalar regional strategies are increasingly dismissed by either inter-local networked ones (e.g. city-regions networks), this workshop intended to explore and discuss these developments. The emphasis was on opportunities to provoke and get feedback rather than on presentation of finished papers.
Major research questions
The following topics and questions are indicative of the themes and subjects we explored:
- KBE and the changing spaces of political economy
- KBE and regional uneven development
- Is there a crisis of the region?
- What do current theories of space tell about the constitution of the region?
- Links between scalar and networked processes
- Individual or comparative cases of regional restructuring in relation to the KBE
How to participate
This event has now passed. Information on participation is included here only for reference.
Following the spirit of the Institute, we welcome ideas from any disciplinary perspective. Expressions of interest in participating should be sent to the organiser, Dr Ramon Ribera-Fumaz.
We envisage meeting rail fare and overnight accommodation for a small number of UK based scholars – but much will depend upon numbers at this stage. This does not, of course, prevent interested non-UK based scholars from participating if they can get to Lancaster under their ‘own steam’ and we would be delighted to provide any invitation letters or other documents that would facilitate such participation.
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