The CROSS-REIS project was represented at the 63rd ERSA Congress, held from August 26-30, 2024, on Terceira Island, Azores, Portugal. The congress, under the theme "Regional Science Dialogues for Peace and Sustainable Development", gathered leading experts and scholars to explore contemporary issues in regional science and sustainable development.
The congress opened with welcome speeches from Tomás Ponce Dentinho, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), Roberta Capello, President of ERSA, and a keynote address by European Commissioner Elisa Ferreira, chaired by Andrés Rodríguez-Pose. These sessions set the tone for a week of insightful and impactful discussions. It also featured an array of keynote speeches and special events that deepened the discourse. A special highlight was the event featuring Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, along with Robin Wells from Princeton University and Carlos Moreno from Sorbonne University. The session, titled "Proximity in the New Economic Geography: Smiling and Crying Cities," centered around the complexities of economic geography and the dual nature of urban development in the context of globalisation.
Renato Casagrandi, representing the CROSS-REIS project, along with his co-authors Lorenzo Mari and Davide Bogani, presented their research titled "Looking for vulnerabilities in health security: the need to integrate regional-level and world-scale connectivity networks of disease transmission". Their presentation underscored the critical need to integrate regional and global connectivity networks to effectively identify and address vulnerabilities in health security.
The CROSS-REIS team’s participation in these events provided a unique platform to engage with global experts, share research findings, and contribute to the broader dialogue on regional science.