About the Central topic

The pandemic of 2020 has changed the world. Europe is experiencing several challenges which have significant impacts on the resilience of society and territories. Now, becoming more resilient is even more important, but the megatrends we are facing are challenging and have to be considered. These include, for example, exponential development of technology, demographic change, global warming, loss of biodiversity and aggravating resource scarcity, heterogenous land use (return of wilderness, abandonment, smart intensification, …), social inequalities, migration, energy transition, changing nature of work, viruses etc.

Some of these trends are well known, others are partly unexpected and sudden; all of them involve challenges, in particular social and environmental ones, that any kind of territory has to face, in particular (but not only) periphery, rural and marginal areas versus urban ones, mountains and border regions versus centripetal ones.

These phenomena raise some initial questions which could be discussed and analysed at the Congress. How could European territories deal with these challenges? What instruments can they use? Which visions and scenarios can be considered for the future of these regional territories? What will the role of regions, specifically rural, mountain and marginal ones be? What kind of regions will be more adaptive and resilient? Can territorial strategies cope with these changes? Which governance approaches are needed?

Do urban areas cope with these situations differently than rural ones? Why and how? Do urban-rural relationships or links matter, are they a strategy to deal with these trends? Do we need other types of cooperation? What role will these territories play in the European context in the future?

The conference aims at providing a quick and updated overview of the main territorial developments and their current/potential implications on the domains of Regional Science in Europe. At the same time, it will deal with possible and potentially resilient strategies and/or solutions for the future.

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