Dear colleagues,

Welcome to the Catalan Association of Regional Science,

Territorial analysis, whether regional, metropolitan or urban, has enjoyed a long tradition in Catalonia, and also in Spain as a whole. The Catalan Regional Science Association and the Spanish Association of Regional Science platforms are appropriate to continue and further strengthen this line of work.

Within this framework, up to 45 Regional Study Meetings have been held, two of which are European (2000 and 2011), we have the Journal of Regional Research, dean of the journals of applied economics in our country and also, of more recent trajectory (since 2014), the blog La Riqueza de las Regiones, which already has about 350 entries and more than 50,000 users in 2019.

In addition it is necessary to review other assets, like the Prize of Regional Economy, and numerous activities done every year, like conferences and seminars, many of them in collaboration with the College of Economists of Catalonia and with the Ateneu Barcelonès.

The work done so far should not, however, imply a conformist attitude. On the contrary, it encourages us to face the challenges of the future in the territorial economy with the utmost enthusiasm and motivation.

Precisely the new challenges that have become apparent this year 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have a strong link with territorial analysis. The so-called “new normal” has a lot to do with a new and more prominent relevance of the territory: the shadows of globalization, a new way of understanding mobility, the relevance of the industry-territory binomial, which guarantees the provision of products that they are, or may become, of first necessity … These are many new questions that spur territorial analysis in the coming years.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and on my own behalf, I welcome you to the Catalan Association of Regional Science at this stage full of the challenges that will surely be posed by the so-called “new normal”.

Barcelona, ​​2 July 2020

Alex Costa
President