Regional Responses and Global Shifts: Actors, Institutions and Organisations

Increasingly, for regional development, actors from diverse disciplines and domains depend on each other, interrelate and cooperate. Due to the growing importance of the multi-actor approach to regional development the conference was concerned with the complexity of mutually interactive strategies and practices of private firms, labour organisations, governmental and non-governmental institutions.

The conference was organised in thirteen gateways addressing a number of topics, such as

Innovative strategies and practices of firms in regional development,

Labour markets and labour organisations and their continued relevance for regional development

Non-Governmental Organisations and Civil Society organisations: facilitators of regional development?

Regional policies: government and quasi-government initiatives

Reassessing EU Regional Policy

People in regions: leadership, collective action and regional development

Financing regions: global financial crisis and beyond?

Cooperation across borders

Global environmental change and the future of regional development

Theory and research in regional studies

Spatial planning in cities and regions

Experience economy and experience society. Culture, leisure and experiences in spatial strategies

Creative regions in a creative economy

I attended the sessions taking place in the gateway »Creative regions in a creative economy« organised by Lisa De Propis (Birmingham Business School), Luciana Lazzaretti (University of Florence), Hanlu Xu (Renmin University of China) and Caroline Chapain (University of Birmingham). The RSAs research interest in creative industry and culture is well established through the conference themes going back more than 10 years.

Lena Mäusezahl and David Baileys

The gateway covered topics such as the Creative Class, Creative Cities and Clusters, the shift from traditional industries to creative industries, the role cultural and creative industries play for local and regional development in Europe and the interrelation of creative clusters and regional innovation. In around twenty presentations international delegates presented their research results. Most strikingly the researchers approaches and topics demonstrated a difference in the research stadium regarding the creative (economy, cities, industries, regions, clusters) topics: researchers from Romania, Serbia and Hungary seemed to be in an early stage of discovering the creative industries topics, while researchers from other countries like Switzerland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and UK take the importance of the cultural and creative industries for regional development as given and progress on topics such as new technologies in Laser Conservation of cultural heritage, governance mechanisms in creative clusters or an in-depth network analysis between different cultural and creative actors.

As an example Eberhard von Einem, University of Applied Technology, Berlin, questions Floridas talent-technology-tolerance argument. Rather, he proposes to use voting patterns as an indicator for tolerance/intolerance and urban and regional business climates. He states: »particular cities and regions, enjoying over proportional quota of both liberal and green votes in federal elections, seem to perform better in economic terms than others, as measured by regional GDP p.C. and other dependent variables.«

Pecs

Katja Schwanke, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, applied the Social Network Analysis to get insights into the interconnections between the creative and cultural classes in a Swiss medium-sized town. The research is interested in the interconnectedness of artists and creative industries as well as their embedment in the region. By means of the Social Network Analysis the researcher is able to visualise to what extend ideas and resources (money, material, personnel) are interchanged between the respective actors and which actors have the most important roles within the region

»Life is short. Art is long: from bohemian graduates to the creative class« was the title of the paper presented by Maria Abreu and Philip McCann (both University of Groningen), Roberta Comunian and Alessandra Faggian (both University of Southampton). In their research they investigate the mismatch between the supply of bohemian graduates and job opportunities in the creative sectors as well as the low economic rewards received by graduates from bohemian disciplines.

Pedro Costa, Lisbon University Institute, typologised the governance mechanisms apparent in creative milieus in order to explore the conditions for the development of creativity in these spaces. For this aim he compares forms of governance in Lisbon, Barcelona and Sao Paolo comparing ten case studies.

Two presentations were concerned with the fashion industry as a tool for economic growth in former textile regions hinting at regions challenges to switch from a manufacturing textile production with low creativity to a symbolic fashion industry. Christine Liefooghe (University of Lille) and David Celetti (University of Padova) compare in their analysis the Lille Metropolitan Area in France and the Italian Bologna Region. They raise the question on what policy strategies (urban planning, territorial marketing, stakeholder networks, and learning centres) should be used so that these local initiatives can succeed while the fashion and clothing industry is organised on a global scale by international firms.

Likewise, my own paper »Spinning the Threads: Hybrid organisations as creative intermediaries negotiating public, private and cultural values« is a comparative case study of two former textile cities (Huddersfield, UK and Mönchengladbach, Germany) that currently support fashion design as part of their regeneration strategy. The paper addresses the need to combine public, private and cultural actors and values in order to successfully carry out such strategies. For this aim, two hybrid organisations functioning as creative intermediaries are analysed in terms of how they internally manage to negotiate these alleged conflicting values.

Framing the workshops four plenary sessions were held:

The conference was opened by David Bailey, Chair RSA, and Gyula Horvath, chairing the first plenary about European Cohesion Policy with contributions from Dirk Ahner (European Commission), Jon Bachtler (University of Strathclyde) and Peter Heil (office of Prime Minister, Hungary).

The second plenary on »International perspectives on regional studies« gave insights into Regional Studies and Practices in Australia (Andrew Beer), East Asia (Henry Yeung), USA (Mark Partridge) and Africa (Ivan Turok).

During the second plenary, the RSA Chair David Bailey handed over the awards for the three best international conference papers. For the first time the association decided this year to award an additional price for the best international conference paper in the Early Career Category. The best paper award winners papers, the book of abstracts, conference papers and presentations can be downloaded here:

In plenary three Gzegorz Gorzelak, Jonathan Potter and Kevin Richardson held the Regional Studies Association Annual Lecture. Kevin Richardson from the Newcastle City Council stimulated the audience for the next Regional Studies Annual Conference in Newcastle. The next conference will take place in the University of Newcastle in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK April 17th-20th 2011.

The conference was ended after the last plenary on »Place, Cities and Regions«. In his speech »Place and Culture« Csaba Ruzsa, the head of the Capital Culture Programme, gave an insight into Pècs approach to the European Capital of Culture year.

In his breathtaking speech Post-democratic cities: for whom and for what? Erik Swyngedouw (University of Manchester, UK) criticised the conferences contribution to be mainly concerned with economic issues of development. He lamented to have missed the political issues arising. On the one hand he praised the city as the place for experimentation with new forms, styles and functions, whether in terms of architectural ornament, innovative gadgets, or sexual preference [] mobilizing the inner contemporary city as a lens, we can peer into the inner-sanctum of our social, cultural and economic quandaries []. The city is the place where the future has already arrived. On the other hand, hinting for example at the recent violent riots in Greece, he warned the audience of the repercussions of post-democratic cities, marginalising specific social groups whose appearance do not fit the requirements of our contemporary neo-liberal cities. In his eyes proper urban politics allow dissent and foster disagreement nurturing debating and experimenting different possible urban futures. Currently however, urban governing is carried out by a variety of actors, institutions and organisations forming new governance-beyond-the-state regimes that annul the political and evacuate democracy.

Not only due to his distinctive way of presenting, but also owing to his critical perspective on current urban politics of governance beyond the state this final speech concluded the conference in an contemplating and emotional way.

One of the fourteen research networks currently supported by the RSA called »Creative Regions in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities« (www.creative-regions.eu) addresses the need to reconcile the global discourse around the creative industries with local and regional development that has specific economic, geographic and institutional contexts across Europe.

The First Research Seminar will take place 20 -21 October 2010 in the Bronnbach Monastery, Wertheim, Germany. The seminar is organised in collaboration with the Association Culture & Work, Bad Mergentheim-Mainz (Germany) and the International Convention Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation, Bronnbach (Germany). Two main topics are on the agenda of the first seminar: »Creative Regions and Cultural Heritage« as well as »Creative Regions in central Europe: challenges and opportunities«. The deadline for registration is 31st August 2010.

Details: www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk

About the author:

Lena Mäusezahl studied International Leisure Management (BBA), European Urban Cultures (MA) & Leisure Studies (MSc) in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, England and Finland. Since December 2009 she is employed at Nordkolleg Rendsburg, Germany (www.nordkolleg.de) as department manager of the Kontaktbüro KulturWirtschaft Nord. She consults and mediates between cultural, economic and political actors in topics such as fundraising, sponsoring or corporate cultural responsibility.