TARPTAUTINIŲ KONFERENCIJŲ ATGARSIAI
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE “REGIONS IN FOCUS”
The thirteenth International conference of the
Regional Studies Association, held at the Universidade
de Lisboa in early April in Lisbon, was a great
success. The conference has attracted over 300 academics,
policy-makers and practitioners from almost
40 countries met to exchange ideas, to discuss key
regional issues network and to enjoy socializing in
a wonderful location, making this the second largest
event the Association has even organized.
Besides the gateways, there were three plenary
sessions. After the opening plenary on Monday
which sets the conference into the context of Lisbon
and Portugal presented by splendid speakers Andres
Rodrigues-Pose from London School of Economics
and Augusto Mateus from Technical University of
Lisbon, the participants have debated recent developments
in European structural funding and regional
policy on Tuesday presented by famous speakers
Nuno Vitorino from Observatorio Do QCA III and
Ronnie Hall from European Commission the participants
have focused on culture, mobility and tourism
on Thursday. Fascinating plenary and parallel
sessions provided many opportunities to discuss key
regional issues.
My academic report “Cohesion and competitiveness
of in Lithuania” showed the high level of
development of some cities and a gap is still growing
between them. The higher investment of EU
structural activities in Lithuania was brought in infrastructure
than in human capital and the knowledge
economy development. A faster development in already
strong areas of country was noticed too. At the
same time there appears to exist a tendency towards
further agglomeration of high-income economic activities.
This signals that the growth generated by the
cohesion support might lead to widening regional
disparities in Lithuania. These interventions should
help to consolidate local resources and facilitate efforts
to build up the key infrastructure, human, social
and physical capital that will help to guarantee
their future competitive success for least-developed
regions. At the same time, the more-developed regions
and big cities of Lithuania are likely in need
to employ a wider range of different interventions
addressing specific market failures that holding back
their performance and competitive position. In the
presence of disparities in regional technological attainment,
the inter-regional trade also promotes the
technological diffusion when the technological progress
is incorporated in traded goods, thus providing
yet another possibility for poorer local economies of
Lithuania to achieve higher level. The next International
conference of the Regional Studies Association
will be in Prague in the early summer of 2008.
Gediminas Mačys
Associate Prof., Department of Economics,
Mykolas Romeris University
Member of Regional Studies Association,
London