2. INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL - JUNE 10 - 14, 2019.
The second International Summer School organized by the Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism, Split was held June 10 -14, 2019 and themed: “REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY – A NEW CONCEPTUALISATION AND REALITY CHECK”. The Summer School explored the most prominent challenges on regional development while giving the participants an opportunity to enhance analytical and critical skills relevant for developing a holistic perspective on regional development with a special focus on EU regional policy.
The Summer School offered two courses on the topic “REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY”:
COURSE 1: (EU) REGIONAL POLICY – REALITY CHECK AND PERSPECTIVE covered the following topics:
- Shifting Horizons in Local and Regional Development (Andres Rodriguez – Pose)
- Why Regional Development Matters for Europe’s Economic Future? (Andres Rodriguez – Pose)
- Regional Policy in Changing Europe (Andres Rodriguez – Pose)
- Context and the Role of EU Regional Policy (Vinko Muštra)
- Open Innovation Framework (Blanka Šimundić)
- Another Generation in Competition Policy Control of Regional Development Policy (Alessandro Valenza)
- Evaluation of Effectiveness of Regional Policy (Martin Ferry)
- The Reform of EU Cohesion Policy: Dynamics of the Budget and Legislative Negotiations (Wolfgang Petzold)
- Financial Instruments in Practice: Uptake and Limitations (Alessandro Valenza)
- Innovation and Competitiveness for Europe and its Territory / 2. Dynamic Innovation Patterns as Ways out of the Crisis (Roberta Capello)
- Cohesion Policy Communication Media Coverage and Public Attitudes (Carlos Mendez)
COURSE 2: REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN POST-CRISIS AND POST-GLOBAL WORLD covered the following topics:
- Shifting Horizons in Local and Regional Development (Andres Rodriguez – Pose)
- Why Regional Development Matters for Europe’s Economic Future? (Andres Rodriguez – Pose)
- Regional Policy in Changing Europe (Andres Rodriguez – Pose)
- Context and the Role of EU Regional Policy (Vinko Muštra)
- Open Innovation Framework (Blanka Šimundić)
- Borders and Barriers in a Dynamic Spatial Economy / Gravitational Force Fields in an Emerging Interconnected European Space Economy (Peter Nijkamp)
- Economic Growth, Environmental Quality and Agglomeration Size; a double Kuznets Curve Approach (Karima Kourtit)
- Regional Development Stimuli through Spatial-Industrial Clusters (Peter Nijkamp) / Dashboards as a Monitoring Tool for Spatial Development (Karima Kourtit)
- Social and Economic Regional Resilience in Changing Contexts: Empirical Research Results from the Nordic Countries (Alberto Giacometti and Jukka Teräs)
- Innovation and Competitiveness for Europe and its Territory / Dynamic Innovation Patterns as Ways out of the Crisis (Roberta Capello)
- Cohesion Policy Communication Media Coverage and Public Attitudes (Carlos Mendez)
LECTURERS at the second International Summer School " REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY – A NEW CONCEPTUALISATION AND REALITY CHECK "
Prof. ANDRES RODRIGUEZ-POSE, PhD

Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics. He was the President of the Regional Science Association International, where he served also as Vice-President in 2014. He has also been Vice-President (2012-2013) and Secretary (2001-2005) of the European Regional Science Association. He is a regular advisor to numerous international organizations, including the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the World Bank, the Cities Alliance, the OECD, the International Labour Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Development Bank of Latin America. He is an editor of Economic Geography and sits on the editorial board of 30 other scholarly journals, including many of the leading international journals in economic geography, human geography, regional science, and management. He is the former holder of a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant and the only social scientist to have been awarded the Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award.
Personal web page: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/rodrigu1/
Prof. PETER NIJKAMP, PhD
Emeritus Professor in regional and urban economics, and in economic geography at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. From 2009 until 2015, he was Honorary University Professor at the same university. He has been president of the governing board of the Netherlands Research Council (NWO) (2002-2009). He is also former president of the European Regional Science Association and of the Regional Science Association International. He is Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, and former vice-president of this organization. In 1996, Peter Nijkamp was awarded the most prestigious scientific prize in the Netherlands, the Spinoza award.
Personal web page: https://sbe.vu.nl/en/departments-and-institutes/spatial-economics/staff/p-nijkamp/index.aspx
Prof. ROBERTA CAPELLO, PhD

Full professor of Regional Economics at Politecnico of Milan, Faculty of Building Engineering and President of the RSAI (Regional Science Association International). Her first degree was in Economics at Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy. Ph.D. in Economics, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She’s Editor in chief of the Italian Journal of Regional Science. Co-Editor of Letters in Spatial and Resource Science, Springer Verlag, Berlin. She’s also member of the European Organizing Committee and Treasurer of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) (2000-2006) and member of the Coordination Committee of the Italian Section of the Regional Science Association. National Secretary of the Italian Section of the International Regional Science Association, 1995-98.
In her long research career she has focused in particular on regional growth and regional economics. She’s additional Member of the editorial board of the Annals of Regional Science and of the Revue d’Economie Régionale et Urbaine and Author of a textbook in Regional Economics, published in Italian (Il Mulino, 2004), and in English (Routledge, 2007).
Personal web page: http://www.rsijournal.eu/?page_id=1781
Assistant Prof. VINKO MUŠTRA, PhD

Vinko Muštra is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Split with a profound interest in regional and urban topics. His main research interest is in the field of smart specialization, urban development, agglomeration economies and EU regional policy. He has been involved in the implementation of national and international research projects and initiatives. Also he has published a wide array of scientific papers and articles in the field of spatial sciences. Furthermore, he is Chairperson of the Organizing committee of the International Conference “Challenges of Europe”.
Assistant Prof. BLANKA ŠIMUNDIĆ, PhD

Blanka Šimundić is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Split. She has experience in teaching and profound interest in tourism economics, and global perspectives of transport and tourism demand and supply. Her main scientific research is in the field of economic policy and development, EU regional policy and the economics of travel and tourism. She has also published scientific papers in the field of tourism demand, input-output analysis, economic development and smart specialisation. She has been involved in the development of national/regional/urban development strategies and national and international research projects.
MARTIN FERRY, PhD

Martin Ferry is a Senior Research Fellow at EPRC. He holds a BA (Hons) in Politics from the University of Strathclyde and a PhD in Central and East European politics from the University of Glasgow. Following his PhD, Martin held research assistantship posts at the University of Paisley (now University of the West of Scotland) and the University of Strathclyde working on the political economy of post-communist transition, the role of green parties and movements.
Since joining EPRC in 2002, Martin has specialised in regional economic development and policy in Central and Eastern Europe (particularly Poland) and the United Kingdom. His research on Central Eastern European issues for EPRC has included managing a Work Programme under the EU Seventh Framework Programme on Growth – Innovation – Competitiveness: Fostering Cohesion in Central and Eastern Europe (GRINCOH).
Martin is particularly interested in the governance and implementation of national regional policy and Cohesion policy, as reflected in several research strands. First, he has studied the institutional frameworks of regional policy and the construction of regional policy governance at different spatial scales, where his work has included ex-post evaluations of policy implementation models, carried out on behalf of EU institutions and national authorities. Second, he has undertaken research on policy coordination and the pursuit of policy synergies, where his research has involved major comparative studies on the coordinated implementation of Cohesion policy and other economic development policies. Third, he has research interests in institutional capacity, policy efficiency and accountability. Here, his experience includes leading EPRC input to a major, EU-wide study on the administrative costs of Cohesion policy management and implementation carried out on behalf of the European Commission. He has published a range of academic articles, book chapters and policy reports on these themes.
Martin is a member of the Executive Management Group of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CRCEES), funded by ESRC and based on the cooperation of six universities across the United Kingdom. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal ‘Europe-Asia Studies’ and the ‘Latvian Regional Review’ (2013-present). Within EPRC, he is Coordinator of Postgraduate Studies.
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KARIMA KOURTIT, PhD
Karima Kourtit is post-doc researcher at KTH (with a double Ph.D. degree both in economics and geography (with distinction), with a profound interest in regional and urban topics. Her main research interest focuses on the emerging ‘New Urban World’. Her main scientific research is in the field of creative industries, urban development, cultural heritage, digital technology, and strategic performance management. Lately, she has been involved in the implementation of national and international research projects and initiatives. Furthermore, she has been involved as a guest editor of several books and many international journals, and has published a wide array of scientific papers, articles, special issues of journals and edited volumes in the field of geography and the spatial sciences.
WOLFGANG PETZOLD

Wolfgang Petzold is deputy director for communication with the European Committee of the Regions, for which he works since 2008. Before, he worked for ten years at the European Commission, including as deputy head of unit at the Regional and Urban Policy Directorate-General. Following his studies of sociology, he began his career in German regional ministries, working on EU affairs and EU funds’ management. He published several books and articles on EU regional and cohesion policy and lectured at universities in Bremen, Bruges, Glasgow, Osnabrück and Tübingen. He is member of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) and its research committee, as well as of the editorial board of the journal European Structural and Investment Funds (EStIF). In 2016, he won the media communications award of the RSA.
JUKKA TERÄS, PhD
Jukka Teräs holds a Doctor of Science (Technology) degree from University of Oulu in Finland and an MBA from the Helsinki School of Economics. Jukka has more than 20 years of experience on innovation promotion and regional development from both public and private sectors. He has gained a special expertise on regional clusters, innovation environments, and issues related to non-metropolitan regions. The current tasks at Nordregio include assignments related to Green Growth issues in regional context, too. Jukka has done research in the recent years e.g. on regional resilience, smart specialisation, and digitalization. He has also contributed to Regional Smart Specialisation Strategy development especially in the Nordic regions.
Personal web page: http://www.nordregio.org/staff/jukka-teras
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI, PhD
Alberto Giacometti is a Research Fellow at Nordregio (Nordic Centre for Regional Development and Planning), where he is engaged in applied research projects in the field of regional development and policy. On behalf of the Nordic thematic group for innovative and resilient regions 2017-2020, under the Nordic Council of Ministers‘ Committee of Civil Servants for Regional Affairs, Alberto has led an in-depth study on Social and Economic Resilience in the Nordic Regions. The study has broadened the discussion on the types of risks Nordic regions are vulnerable to, and what institutional, social and economic structures are essential in coping with uncertainty. Moreover, Alberto is involved in topic-areas such as skills development, green growth, governance and participatory processes.
Personal web page: http://www.nordregio.org/staff/alberto-giacometti
CARLOS MENDEZ, PhD

Carlos Mendez is a Senior Research Fellow at European Policies Research Centre of the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, UK. He has degrees from the University College London (BA), London School of Economics (MSc) and University of Strathclyde (PhD). As a specialist on the European Union and regional development policy, Carlos’ main research interests are in the area of public policy and administration, particularly in relation to EU Cohesion policy and the EU Budget. He has co-authored a monograph on EU Cohesion policy, published a range of academic articles and policy reports, and worked on a wide range of projects and evaluation studies for EU, national and regional institutions. He was the project manager for COHESIFY, a Horizon 2020 project assessing the impact of EU Cohesion policy on citizens’ attitudes to the EU.
Personal web page:
http://eprc-strath.eu/About-us/people/Research-staff/Carlos-Mendez.html
ALESSANDRO VALENZA

Alessandro is an expert in EU Regional Policies. He leads studies and independent evaluations for the EU institutions (European Commission, Committee of the Regions, European Parliament, European Investment Bank). Further on, he has extensive experience in providing on the ground technical support to Member States (Austria, Croatia, France, Italy, Malta, Romania, Spain) in the implementation of ESIF Programmes.
Most recent projects include studies in the fields of cross border cooperation, regional innovation, financial instruments, State aid and EU public procurement. He is the Coordinator of the framework contract on economic and social policies for the Committee of the Regions. Moreover, from March 2016 to November 2018 Alessandro was team leader of the EIB fi-compass platform (www.fi-compass.eu), providing advisory services on financial instruments set up under the European Structural and Investment Funds.
He lectured on EU programmes and projects at the University of Macerata since 2006 to 2015.