Call for Joint Special Symposium of SRA-E & ERSA (European Regional Science Association)

Resilience of Regions in the Face of Risks

The term “resilience” is used in many disciplines with different meanings. Psychology and psychiatry focus upon the individual and their resilience during life course transition and events. In ecological systems, resilience is related to system functioning rather than the stability or otherwise of its component populations and maintenance or loss of steady states. Social resilience is the ability of communities to withstand external shocks to their social infrastructure. Engineering resilience focuses upon the vulnerability of physical structures to hazardous environments and natural disasters, forecasting the likelihood of catastrophic events and systemic breakdowns and their social and economic implications. In economics, resilience has been defined in terms of return to a fixed and narrowly defined equilibrium or, in the more liberal version, multiple equilibria. Recently, attention has turned specifically to consider spatial and territorial aspects of resilience in local and regional development and planning. In the social sciences, more generally, the term of regional resilience has become popular because of its association with regional adaptation and so has strong connections with evolutionary economics and evolutionary economic geography.

This Joint Special Symposium of SRA-E and ERSA aims to bring together the members of these two networks who have common research interest. While the main interest of SRA-E is risk analysis including risk assessment, risk management, risk communication and policy related to risks, ERSA is interested in regional, urban and local development and related issues and spatial and territorial aspects of risks as well as the resilience of territories and regions. This Joint Special Symposium on ‘Resilience of Regions in the Face of Risks’ aims to provide a platform for discussion how resilience of regions can be improved in the face of risks from an interdisciplinary perspective. This Joint Special Symposium also aims to initiate a collaboration between the two networks that may lead to further joint activities in the future.

Specific topics of the Joint Special Symposium includes:

•Resilience of regions
•Emerging patterns of regional resilience
•Risks and regional economy
•Economic turbulence and resilience of regions
•Resilience, innovation and regional creativity
•Resilience and territorial risks
•Territorial risk management
•Policies implemented in resilient territories
•Innovation, global change and territorial resilience
•Spatial and territorial aspects of resilience in local and regional development
•Resilience of urban systems
•Resilient cities
•Resilience of social-ecological systems in rural areas
•Adaptation, adaptability and adaptive capacity
•Emerging risks and new management approaches
•Resilience analysis

Symposium Organizer:

Tüzin Baycan (Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Istanbul Technical University, TURKEY)

Chair of the Organizing Committee of SRA-E 2014 Istanbul

Seda Kundak (Assoc.Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Istanbul Technical University, TURKEY)

ERSA (European Regional Science Association) is the largest supraregional science association covered under the umbrella of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). The RSAI oversees three major superregional organisations in Europe, North America and the Pacific. The main objectives of the Association include fostering the exchange of ideas and the promotion of studies focused on regions, including the utilisation of tools, methods and theoretical frameworks specifically designed for regional analysis. It also examines the concepts, procedures and analytical techniques of various social and other sciences. As a field of the social sciences, regional science is concerned with analytical and empirical approaches to problems that are specifically urban, rural or regional.

For further information on ERSA, use the link: http://www.ersa.org

SRA (Society for Risk Analysis) is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, scholarly, international society that provides an open forum for all those who are interested in risk analysis. The Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) was founded in response to the need for an interdisciplinary society which would address emerging issues in risk analysis, management and policy. It operates world-wide with International Sections in North America, Europe and Japan. The Society for Risk Analysis – Europe aims to bring together individuals and organizations interested in risk assessment, risk management and risk communication in Europe.

For further information on SRA and SRA-E, use the link: http://www.sra.org and http://www.sraeurope.org