Analysing the present: drawing on the legacy of Vere Foster in public policy debate on futures of schools

This paper sets out a framing analysis for a public policy debate on the future of schools that resonates with practitioners in teaching and teacher education on the island of Ireland, north and south, but also in other countries. This is informed by a democratic impulse to facilitate public policy debates, particularly on the ways schools and higher education institutions are directed and constrained by budget cuts and the shrinking of public funding in this age of austerity and gross inequalities. This is also informed by a need for policy learning about global neoliberal agendas, free-market capitalism and its push towards profit-making schools in systems that are deregulated but experience tighter centralized control, which can result in the domination and control of teachers’ work by politicians, corporate-funded think-tanks, entrepreneurs and business managers. Even though Ireland boasts checks and balances in the form of current structures and education legislation in both jurisdictions, the global financial crisis and the collapse of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ together with the ‘troika’ bail-out and Ireland’s exit from the troika in tandem with the unravelling of the common economic model built up over the last three decades have troubled the constituent social and political settlements with regard to teaching and teacher education. The authors also take inspiration from Vere Foster (1819–1900), an Anglo-Irish gentleman, philanthropist and ‘social worker’ with the poor in post-famine Ireland, as well as a significant social campaigner renowned for his contribution to emigration and education. His ideas, generated at a time of great social upheaval, can be reworked to be appropriate in the Ireland of today to address the neoliberal agenda that has brought the Republic of Ireland economy to the brink of disaster. It is argued that imaginative responses about future possibilities for teaching and teacher education, their form, regulation and accountability are but a few of the terms needed for public policy debate that engages the profession on the type of schooling that would best meet the needs of Irish society now and into the future

Cultural economy and the creative field of the city

I begin with a rough sketch of the incidence of the cultural economy in US cities today. I then offer a brief review of some theoretical approaches to the question of creativity, with special reference to issues of social and geographic context. The city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity, and an attempt is made to show how this can be understood in terms of a series of localized field effects. The creative field of the city is broken down (relative to the cultural economy) into four major components, namely, (a) intra-urban webs of specialized and complementary producers, (b) the local labor market and the social networks that bind workers together in urban space, (c) the wider urban environment, including various sites of memory, leisure, and social reproduction, and (d) institutions of governance and collective action. I also briefly describe some of the path-dependent dynamics of the creative field. The paper ends with a reference to some issues of geographic scale. Here, I argue that the urban is but one (albeit important) spatial articulation of an overall creative field whose extent is ultimately nothing less than global

Kinetics of 1,6-hydrogen migration in alkyl radical reaction class

The kinetics of the 1,6-intramolecular hydrogen migration in the alkyl radical reaction class has been studied using the reaction class transition state theory (RC-TST) combined with the linear energy relationship (LER) and the barrier height grouping (BHG) approach. The RC-TST/LER, where only reaction energy is needed, and RC-TST/BHG, where no other information is needed, are found to be promising methods for predicting rate constants for any reaction in the 1,6-intramolecular H migration in alkyl radicals reaction class. Direct comparison with available experimental data indicates that the RC-TST/LER, where only reaction energy is needed, can predict rate constants for any reaction in this reaction class with satisfactory accuracy

Regional heterogeneity and firms’ innovation: the role of regional factors in industrial R&D in India

This study makes an early attempt to estimate the magnitude and intensity of manufacturing firms’ R&D by Indian states during the period 1991‒2008 and analyses the role of regional factors on firm-level R&D activities. As there is little research on state-wise R&D performance of firms in India, this study serves an important contribution to the academic and policy realm. It has brought out the fact the total manufacturing R&D investment in India is unevenly distributed regionally with a few states accounting for disproportionate share of it. Regional heterogeneity or inter-state disparities in R&D has increased between the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century. In view of this persistent regional heterogeneity in R&D, the study has developed and estimated an empirical model for a sample of 4545 Indian manufacturing firms with R&D facilities located in single state and that explicitly includes regional factors as probable factors affecting R&D. The three-step Censored Quantitle Regression results confirm that regional factors play an important role in shaping the R&D intensity of the sample of firms. This led us to some useful policy suggestions for regional governments to promote local firms’ R&D activities

Evaluating Regional Competitiveness Policies: Insights from the New Economic Geography

Potter J. Evaluating regional competitiveness policies: insights from the New Economic Geography, Regional Studies. This paper examines the relevance of theoretical insights emerging from the New Economic Geography (NEG) for the evaluation of regional competitiveness policies. The major value of the NEG for evaluation is that it offers a clear theory of change on how policy can be expected to impact on regional competitiveness and a theoretical framework for considering potential impacts on national growth as well as spatial equity. Its insights can inform the questions that evaluators pose and the processes they seek to measure. NEG ideas on the influences on competitiveness and their outcomes suggest several new evaluation challenges, including extending the scope of the activities evaluated, assessing interrelationships among regions, assessing impacts on net agglomeration economies, evaluating the trade-off between growth and equity, and understanding threshold effects. [image omitted] Potter J. Evaluation des politiques de competitivite regionale: point sur la nouvelle geographie economique, Regional Studies. Cet article examine la pertinence des informations theoriques emergeant de la nouvelle geographie economique (NEG) pour evaluer les politiques de competitivite regionale. L'interet principal de la NEG pour cette evaluation reside dans le fait qu'elle offre une theorie precise du changement et sur l'impact que l'on peut attendre de la politique sur la competitivite regionale et un cadre theorique permettant de considerer les impacts potentiels sur la croissance nationale et sur l'equite spatiale. Ces informations peuvent repondre aux questions que les evaluateurs se posent et sur les processus qu'ils essayent de mesurer. Les idees de la NEG concernant les influences sur la competitivite et leurs resultats suggerent plusieurs nouveaux defis pour l'evaluation, y compris l'extension du domaine des activites evaluees, l'evaluation des relations entre regions, l'evaluation des impacts sur les economies d'agglomeration nettes, l'evaluation des arbitrages entre la croissance et l'equite et la connaissance des effets de seuil. Competitivite regionale Politique regionale Evaluation Nouvelle geographie economique Potter J. Bewertung regionaler Wettbewerbspolitiken: Einblicke der neuen Wirtschaftsgeografie, Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, wie relevant die theoretischen Einblicke der neuen Wirtschaftsgeografie fur die Bewertung der regionalen Wettbewerbspolitiken sind. Der wichtigste Wert der neuen Wirtschaftsgeografie liegt darin, dass sie eine klare Theorie der Veranderung im Zusammenhang mit der Frage bietet, inwieweit von der Politik Auswirkungen auf die regionale Wettbewerbsfahigkeit zu erwarten sind, und dass sie einen theoretischen Rahmen zur Untersuchung der potenziellen Auswirkungen auf das landesweite Wachstum sowie auf das raumliche Gleichgewicht liefert. Diese Einblicke konnen sich auf die von Bewertern gestellten Fragen sowie auf die von ihnen zu messenden Verfahren auswirken. Die Ideen der neuen Wirtschaftsgeografie uber die Einflusse der Wettbewerbsfahigkeit und ihre Ergebnisse in diesem Zusammenhang legen mehrere neue Bewertungsmethoden nahe, darunter eine Erweiterung des Umfangs der bewerteten Aktivitaten, eine Bewertung der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Regionen, eine Untersuchung der Auswirkungen auf Netto-Agglomerationswirtschaften, eine Bewertung des Ausgleichs zwischen Wachstum und Gleichgewicht sowie ein Verstandnis der Schwelleneffekte. Regionale Wettbewerbsfahigkeit Regionalpolitik Bewertung Neue Wirtschaftsgeografie Potter J. Evaluacion de las politicas de competitividad regional: ideas de la nueva geografia economica, Regional Studies. En este articulo examino la importancia de las ideas teoricas que surgen de la nueva geografia economica para la evaluacion de las politicas competitivas regionales. El principal valor de la nueva geografia economica para la evaluacion consiste en que ofrece una clara teoria de cambio en cuanto a como puede repercutir la politica en la competitividad regional y una estructura teorica para considerar los posibles efectos en el crecimiento nacional y en la igualdad espacial. Esta perspectiva puede responder a las preguntas que plantean los evaluadores y los procesos que quieren medir. Las ideas de la nueva geografia economica sobre las influencias que se ejercen en la competitividad y sus resultados indican varios retos nuevos de evaluacion, entre ellos una ampliacion del alcance de las actividades evaluadas, la valoracion de las interrelaciones entre las regiones, la valoracion del efecto en las economias netas de aglomeracion, la valoracion de la compensacion entre el crecimiento y la igualdad y la comprension de los efectos umbrales. Competitividad regional Politica regional Evaluacion Nueva geografia economicaRegional competitiveness, Regional policy, Evaluation, New Economic Geography (NEG),