Ioannis (Yannis) Psycharis (p), Eleni Gaki, Asimina Christoforou, Jenny Sikala, Danai Toursoglou, Vasilis Xiros, Vasiliki Oikonomopoulou

Genoveva Aparicio Serrano

Refugee crisis is one among the most important megatrends that have been evolved after the turn of the new century and affects countries, citizens and localities across the globe. The aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of the refugee crisis on the local community of Chios Island as perceived by citizens and local actors. The focus of the analysis is on how locality was affected by this huge pulse of refugees that reached the island under extremely difficult conditions and totally abandoned from any of their belongings. It is estimated that an influx of almost 120,804 refugees in total reached the island of 54,000 inhabitants’ only the year 2015. The refugee crisis is challenging humanitarian, economic, social and environmental dimensions of life on localities. Issues of integration, housing, water supply, education and healthcare facilities, civil and human rights, and governance of policies require a multi-level and multi-actor approach. Through a participatory methodology and by utilizing a semi-structure questionnaire for interviews with stakeholders, a purpose constructed platform for the citizens’ participation, in person contacts with local people across the island, and focus groups discussion, the experience of Chios islands could be seen as a laboratory for the study of the impact of the refugee crisis on localities. Furthermore, this research aims to make an assessment of policies that were implemented in order to extract useful results and recommendations that could empower policies in an aim to make the Island more resilient and shielded to future crises.

Marzena Walaszek (p)

Ioannis (Yannis) Psycharis

The aim of my presentation is to characterize possible scenarios for the functioning of educational services in Poland in the light of Poland's demographic forecast until 2060. Demographic conditions are the basis for planning the school network on a local and supra-local scale. The Central Statistical Office in Poland prepares demographic forecasts for the country, voivodeships, poviats and communes, which are publicly available and can be used by local government units in the process of planning and managing social services, including educational services. Unfortunately, demographic forecasts for Poland indicate that the negative demographic phenomena and processes already observed will continue in the future, in particular resulting from a decrease in the number of births and an increase in the number of deaths. The deteriorating demographic situation will therefore have a very important impact on maintaining the current school network, considering that Poland's demographic forecast indicates a decrease in the total population from 37.5 million people in 2024 to 30.9 million people in 2060. During my presentation I will discuss the results of the demographic forecast for Poland and the projected changes in the number of school-age children and youth, along with possible consequences for the functioning of educational services (in particular primary and secondary schools) in the future.

Luís Lopes (p), João-Pedro Ferreira, Vítor Raposo, Luís Cruz

Marzena Walaszek

Population ageing will lead to profound changes in our societies. According to the official statistics, Portugal is one of the countries where this problem has been worsening. The central projection scenario done by Statistics Portugal predicts that between 2020 and 2050, the population will fall from 10.3 to 9.6 million and the working-age population (15 to 64 years old) from 6.6 to 5.1 million. It also projects an increase in the Ageing Index from 167.7 to 297.2 elderly per 100 young people. Significant regional heterogeneity is associated with ageing, with some regions observing a more severe increase in the elderly population than others.
A central issue concerning the effects of ageing is the change in household consumption patterns. As average age increases, consumption patterns will create additional demand for commodities that are relatively more consumed by elderly citizens (e.g., medications, health services, and social support for elderly households). In contrast, the consumption of other products is expected to decrease relatively. Such changes in household consumption patterns will impact the region’s economic structure, GDP, employment, and productivity.
This work proposes an innovative methodology that applies a multi-regional input-output model - applied to the five Portuguese mainland NUTS II regions - extended to estimate the sectorial consequences of ageing. The most innovative feature is that this framework disaggregates household consumption according to different age groups and estimates the effects of changes in the region’s age pyramid, combined with the assumption of distinct productivity scenarios.
The results highlight that regions will observe distinct impacts and that additional demand and employment will emerge, particularly on nontradable services associated with health products. At the national level, industries that produce inputs for the health industry will also observe positive impacts and generate higher employment levels.

Daniela-Andreia Damian (p), Corneliu Iațu, Gilles Maignant

Luís Lopes

In the last decades education has begun to receive a paramount importance, due to its primordial role in the economic progress and development (Rodríguez-Pose & Tselios, 2011) of a society. Education impacts the poverty level of a nation (Tilak, 2002), helps increase welfare (Patrinos, 2016) and improves living conditions. The disparities that could be found among the EU Member States and the new issues they faced (demographic aging, unemployment and a lack of skilled labor force) bring into question the quality and efficiency of the Member States’ education systems. Among the others, one measure of Europe's education systems quality may be the comparative analysis of the results of PISA assessments. While multiple studies carry out an analysis at country level or a cross-country analysis, only a limited number of studies have been conducted for (all) both EU and EEA member states and using the results of several assessments.
This study aims to inquire how the European states (EU and EEA) performed in the 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2022 PISA assessments. Using spatial and descriptive analysis, inferential statistics the study seeks to achieve results concerning: i) the trend in PISA test scores over the period 2012-2022; ii) how PISA assessments results shape educational disparities among EU and EEA member states.
The preliminary results reveal that the scores obtained by students in the Member States have been decreasing over the period analysed, with a sharp decline of the percentage of students which are above the minimum proficiency level.
Further, it can be considered that the performance of an education system is driven by a complex of several determinants. The culture of a people, better adapted policies to the needs of the students, priority funding for education, a society where meritocracy is paramount are all determinants that can contribute decisively to increase the quality of the educational systems across Europe.
In order to drive meaningful policy changes and reduce gaps at European level, member states should improve their governance, efficiency and transparency, and identify the exact funding needs of each region. Exploring the implementation of cohesive strategies and shared policies at the EU level may prove instrumental in elevating the standards of education across member states.


Patrinos, H. (2016) ‘Estimating the return to schooling using the Mincer equation’

Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Tselios, V. (2011) ‘Mapping the European regional educational distribution’

Tilak, J.B.G. (2002) ‘Education and Poverty’

Genoveva Aparicio Serrano (p), Amanda Jiménez Aceituno, Mariluz Maté Sánchez-Val

Daniela-Andreia Damian

This study investigates the role of environmental quality in the Spanish Mediterranean area, on the path of growth of the gross income per capita in a seven-year period, from 2015 to 2021. Starting from a baseline model based on the well-known formulation of beta convergence of Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1992) we state that the environmental quality of one territory influence the income growth of its inhabitants. Our paper analyses environmental quality through two opposed indicators: the presence of Natural Protected Areas (NPAs) and the nitrates concentration of underground waters (NC). This article is the first econometric analysis of income convergence for a European country from an environmental quality perspective, exploiting the political context of Spain to which ecological transition has become a national priority. The results indicate a significant negative sign of the initial level of income per capita confirming the existence of the beta convergence. Secondly, the degree of conservation, measured with two different and opposed indicators (NPA and NC) is significantly accelerating and slowing respectively the income growth in the examined territories. The sign and significance of the impact of socio-economic and demographic related indicators such as unemployment or the mean age of population are also aligned with previous literature. These findings highlight the relevant role of environmental quality in the development of economic and social conditions in small geographical areas.