Science and technology indicators in & for the peripheries. A research agenda

Trabajo presentado a la 15th International Conference on Scientometrics & Informetrics, celebrada en Estambúl (Turquia) del 29 de junio al 4 de julio de 2015.This paper aims to propose a research agenda that explores the problems that emerge when S&T indicators are used in peripheral contexts, that is, in geographical or social spaces that are somehow marginal to the centres of scientific activity. In these situations evaluators and decision-makers are likely to use indicators that were designed to reflect variables relevant in the dominant social and geographical contexts --i.e. in the leading countries, languages, disciplines, etc.--, but that are usually not adequate in peripheral contexts. We propose to examine various dimensions of periphery. First, the cognitive dimension: areas of research, such as the humanities that capture less attention (and resources) than the more prestigious disciplines, such as molecular biology. Second, the geographical dimension: e.g. global south vs. global north, regions vs. metropolises. Third, the social group dimension: women, the poor, or perhaps the elderly have social needs that are different from those of richer or more powerful groups --and the problems affecting the former tend be less researched than those of the later. The research agenda proposed would investigate the mechanisms by which performance indicators tend to be biased against the peripheries (e.g. bias in language, journal or topic coverage in conventional databases). We suggest how these biases may suppress scientific diversity and shift research towards a higher degree of homogeneity.Peer reviewe

Learning from Latin America's Experience: Europe's Failure in the "Lisbon Process"

The current paper investigates the cross-national relevance of Latin American "dependencia theory" for five dimensions of development (democracy and human rights, environment, human development and basic human needs satisfaction, gender justice, redistribution, growth and employment) on a global scale. It tries to confront the very basic pro-globalist assumptions of the "Lisbon process", the policy target of the European leaders since the EU's Lisbon Council meeting in March 2000 to make Europe the leading knowledge-based economy in the world with a "Latin American perspective". A realistic and politically useful analysis of the "Lisbon process" has to be a "Schumpeterian" approach. First, we analyze the "Lisbon performance" of the world economy by multivariate, quantitative means, looking into the possible contradictions that might exists between the dependent insertion into the global economy and other goals of the "Lisbon process". Dependency from the large, transnational corporations, as correctly predicted by Latin American social science of the 1960s and 1970s, emerges as one of the most serious development blockades, confronting Europe. Secondly, we analyze European regional performance since the 1990s in order to know whether growth and development in Europe spread evenly among the different regions of the continent. It emerges that dependency from the large transnational corporations is incompatible with a balanced, regional development. Finally, we discuss cross-national and historical lessons learned from the views of dependency and Schumpeterian perspectives for current policy-making in Europe, and opt for an industrial policy approach in the tradition of former EU-Commission President (1985-1995) Jacques Delors.Lisbon process, European Union, Latin America, Dependency theory

COHESION POLICY:METHODOLOGY AND INDICATORS TOWARDS COMMON APPROACH

The territorial cohesion is a focal object of the regional programming period 2007-2013. This paper aims to purpose a critical review of the cohesion conceptualisation and of its measure, starting from an exchange of experiences and from an initial institutional demand inspired to regional projects foreseen in 2013 programme (ESPON Seminar 2008; French Green paper on Cohesion 2008). Starting from a literature review and from the basic question of indicators, the paper aims to enhance territorial cohesion, measuring its different levels at local, national and European level. The author takes a methodological approach to analyse and to detect a set of territorial cohesion indicators and to evaluate effectiveness and efficiency of indicators’ systems, currently used to measure this territorial dimension (STeMA). This kind of approach is relevant to the programming period of new Structural Funds, looking at the French Green Paper 2008, implementing the 2007-13 Programme.territorial cohesion, model, system of indicators, efficiency

Trends and evolution in the concept of historical towns sustainability

The present study aims to review the scientific literature on sustainable towns by tracking its evolution and trends, with reference to the Sustainable Development Goals localization, and by applying social network analysis to bibliometric science. The bibliometric analysis, implemented over the timeframe 1996-2021, allowed the generation of maps based on network data displaying the relationships among scientific journals, researchers, and countries. Two different bibliometric analyses were performed to explore the scientific literature on “sustainable historical towns” and “sustainable towns’ assessment”. The results were useful to capture the multidimensional nature of sustainable towns by analyzing a large amount of literature data while identifying the main scientific patterns in this field of science. The paper is organized as follows. Sections 1 and 2 briefly introduce the topic and goal of the study. In section 3, the concept of “historical town” is defined by a qualitative and quantitative analysis. In section 4, governance issues related to small size municipalities are described with a focus on the inner peripheral areas.  In Section 5, a review of sustainable urban policy evolution at the global and European levels is presented. Section 6 illustrates the state of the art in sustainability assessment of towns, analyzing the main issues and advancements of SDGs localization in the European historical small and medium-sized towns and rural areas. Section 7 illustrates the methodology and results of the performed bibliometric network analysis. Finally, the main findings of the study and research perspectives are summarized in Section 8

Innovation Indicators: for a critical reflection on their use in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)

It has been widely recognized that innovation is an important driver of economic growth. Many Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) have adopted innovation indicators to monitor innovation performance and to evaluate the impact of innovation policies. This paper argues that innovation indicators should be customized to the different socio-economic structures of LMICs. For this, the definition of innovation needs to be relevant to the multitude of innovation actors and processes in LMICs. LMICs also need to build competences not only in the construction of innovation indicators within their statistical systems, but also in the use of these indicators by among others policy makers. Especially as the fourth edition of the Oslo Manual (OM 2018) has broadened the scope of “innovation”, opening up policy space for LMICs to accommodate the diversity in their national systems of innovation and to develop accompanying innovation indicators.JEL Classification Codes: O38, O32, O29, P47http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/iizuka-michiko

Cultural gateways - building partnerships for sustainable development in destination regions

This paper introduces the main findings of the CULTURAL GATEWAYS project caried out during 2004-2005 by the author wiht a eserach fellowship at Universitat Autonoma, Barcelona. The aim of the project is the development of a sustainable urban-rural relationship in the organisation of tourist regions around main urban destination. The projects analyses existing visitation models and cognitive processes of visitors in main destinations, as well as existing organisations that produce culture in peripheral areas, elaborating strategies to promote and diffuse these less-known assets. A key motive is to build on the existing tourist potential, developing “gateways” (both physical and virtual) that reconnect the cultural heritage of peripheral communities to existing value chains. The departure point is that the preservation of cultural heritage through responsible tourism is the key to generating both wealth and well being in host communities. Experience demonstrates that host communities are better able to cope with existing problems and new challenges, when all concerned parties jointly attempt to find a balanced solution through mutual consultation, business-to-business co-operation and public-private partnerships. The main challenge to that respect is that many local communities do not realise the interest value that features of their local community may have to the outside world. It is believed that the “metropolitan” or “regional” dimension of tourism governance, and thus necessarily of cultural strategies, is the key to a more sustainable use of the heritage and cultural assets for community development. A restructured core-periphery visitation pattern benefits the communities involved, in terms of lower pressure levels and crowding of central destinations, of enhanced entrepreneurial capacity in rural areas, and of a more articulated visitor mobility on the territory, rebalancing the costs and revenues generated by tourism and boosting the spin-off potential of tourism in areas with a weak economic basis but rich in culture. On this account, ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) are seen as a promising tool that achieves a number of desirable outcomes: o global access to local cultural knowledge, o interactivity between the local cultural and foreign audiences with the establishment of “cultural empathy” between hosts and guests, o integration of the peripheral tourist areas in the distribution channels of core products, o empowerment and training for entrepreneurs in the cultural industries. The effects of global-urban-rural partnership through e-Strategies are tested in a number of pilot destination regions, including the Catalan and the Galician Communities in Spain and the Veneto Region in Italy. The project will analyse how the introduction of ICT tools for tourism and cultural marketing has changed (or is likely to change) visitors’ attitudes and community involvement for a more sustainable tourism. An attempt will be made at generalising the results providing guidelines for regional managers.

The failure of the EU in the global “Lisbon process” : a cross-national, quantitative tribute to the relevance of the economic theories of professor Panayotopoulos

In this paper we analyze the Lisbon performance of the countries of the European Union from a long-term, structural perspective. It again turns out that first of all things get worse, before they get better – the old wisdom of classical development economics (Kuznets) and political science modernization theory of the postwar period. In addition, it emerges that foreign savings, “economic freedom”, low comparative international price levels, and World Bank type pension reforms are not compatible with a solid and longrun development path, based on our knowledge of 17 component variables, integrating the dimensions growth, environment, human rights, basic human needs satisfaction, and gender equality. In addition, European Union membership (EU-15, “old Europe”) has the numerically highest negative effect on the global Lisbon process; while Muslim population shares in no way bloc the development process, on the contrary. Neo-liberal globalization strategies are condemned to failure; while European decision makers in particular would be strongly advised to re-think their Lisbon strategy, which pushes countries towards accepting strategies, which, inter alia, lower instead of increase the comparative international price level. Is a price level of say, the Congo’s dimension, really the aim of the Lisbon process? Balassa and Samuelson assumed that rising international price levels for the periphery country are a precondition of positive development. Falling relative price levels would suggest in the neo-classical argument that the price of the nontradables in the European economy decreased dramatically over time. Structuralist economists, like Stanford Professor emeritus Pan Yotopoulos, usually warn the weaker countries of the periphery that:“Currency substitution represents an asymmetric demand from Mexicans to hold dollars as a store of value, a demand that is not reciprocated by Americans holding pesos as a hedge against the devaluation of the dollar!” (Yotopoulos and Sawada, 2005). In addition to the above specified dependency theory and world systems theory arguments, urbanization positively affects Lisbon Process Index Indicator. Ceteris paribus, World Bank pension reforms will be negatively related to the process: Pushing Europe downwards the path of falling comparative prices will only increase the growth impediments of the growingly multicultural Europe.peer-reviewe

Regional aspects of European Cohesion Policy

European Cohesion Policy has gained significant influence on urban and regional development at different scales. Especially its third pillar, territorial cohesion, became central for the harmonisation of spatial planning across and beyond European borders. However, being also addressed as a policy ‘black box’, unable to navigate precise planning action, it gains its strength but also shows its greatest weakness by providing a canvas for differing projections. Current European funding has become an essential source in regional development, sought-after by territorial centres as well as peripheries across European member states and beyond. Considering the present academic discussion on European territorial cohesion, it remains largely unclear what the concept does in regional practice. Especially a more systemic, holistic perspective analysing the connection between local practices, heterogeneous regional processes and the wider discourse shaping dynamics is seldomly taken. With an ongoing growth-friendly focus on regional development - polarisation, disparities and uneven spatial development are often being reproduced. Combining critical academic perspectives, the present thesis aims to contribute to the discussion on how to move beyond growth-related narratives, towards an inclusive and sustainable territorial development. Therefore, it traces the context-specific policy translations of European territorial cohesion while looking for opportunities to move towards spatial justice and sustainable transitions. Focusing on the actors, the regional processes and the European policy framing of cohesion, territorial and environmental development, the thesis analyses the Austrian, Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian border region by looking at three European Interreg V-A cross-border cooperation programmes. Overall, using an empirical mixed-methods approach, combining stakeholder interviews, regional data and document analysis, the findings give deeper insights into the unequal development of border-regions while showing the different policy translations in line with regional needs. Furthermore, it identifies the need for alternative visions for regional ‘success’, pointing towards ‘the right to not catch up’ in the context of spatial justice and capabilities-oriented approaches to regional planning. Reflecting on current ‘performance goals’ directed development objectives in planning, it finally argues for a reorientation towards ‘learning goals’ instead. In conclusion, to allow for spatially just, green and transformative processes, there is the need to strengthen ownership, place sensitive and territorially just future policy frameworks, taking into account local mobilisation, learning and collective action. Thereby, the thesis adds new aspects to the interdisciplinary debate on European territorial cohesion and sustainable development, joining geographical research on European territorial planning, spatial justice and regional transitions