Book Description

Scientific theories are representational spaces in which we model the world. Therefore, science undergoes periodic paradigm shifts instead of progressing in a linear and continuous way: paradigm shifts occur when old paradigms show their inadequacy and ineffectiveness. What is defined as research is revaluated, concepts turn upside down and earlier research is reinterpreted. Covid-19 brought to the fore the rise of a new paradigm that in 2016 the sociologist Ulrich Beck understood and framed as ‘metamorphosis of the world’ (Beck 2016). Global risks (climate change, resource depletion, migrations) distribute forms of social inequalities that often escape the traditional interpretative categories of the mainstream economy (class, nation etc.) and normative concepts like sustainable development. In this perspective, the regional scale (in social studies and policies) is crucial. Risks are assuming, in fact, different geographies in relation to the different territorial morphologies or social inequalities involved. To what extent this paradigm shift is challenging either mainstream economics or our critical thinking and awareness as social scientists? Despite a body of studies that, until the first half of the twentieth century, had not taken into account the variables of time and space in their analysis of development, places are taken in their specificity as the founding element for describing (and for some authors, interpreting) the constraints and opportunities of regions for their historical, cultural, and socioeconomic conditions. The neoclassical theory of growth, based on the model of the Nobel laureate Robert Solow, expunges the spatial variable and is then gradually questioned in favour of the endogenous regional development approach (Stimson et al. 2011). Over time, places take on the role of a favourable (or unfavourable) environment for business, making possible the creation of external economies (or diseconomies), and giving rise to specific forms of cooperation between companies and societal actors. At least to some authors, what produces development and innovation in certain successful regions is, in this sense, not the assertion of a single company, but the competitiveness of the entire territory, expressed through the synergies between institutions and socioeconomic actors. These synergies are the basis of the processes of accumulation of knowledge and the dissemination of information and opportunities useful for supporting development in the context of effective planning (Dessein J. Battaglini E. and Horlings L. 2016). The 20 cases described in this book are stemming from the debate raised by the International Conference on Research Outlook, Innovations and Research Trends (ICROIRT-2020). They are highlighting the time-space dimension affecting economic structures, and the ways in which socioeconomic use material and immaterial resources, mediate practices and institutions and construct narratives and identities, pointing to how assign value to their resources and thus influencing regional economics. During a paradigm shift like which we are confronting, facts are uncertain, top down economic receipts in dispute and decisions urgent. The Covid-19 crisis has already put at risk all organizations or companies that have basked in roles, position rents or narratives that have shown resistance, including ideological ones, to the metamorphosis of the world underway. We will now see what we can do: as either individuals, or organisations and institutions we are all responsibly involved. We would like to thank all the contributors who have made the production of this book so fascinating and enjoyable. Their scholarship and dedicated commitment and motivation to ‘getting it right’ are the keys to the book’s quality, and we greatly appreciate their good nature over many months in the face of our editorial demands and time limits. We are also grateful for using their texts, ideas, and critical remarks. We would also like to thank Prof Dr Alimnazar Islamkov, Dr R Shanthi , all reviewers and all authors for their help in consolidating the interdisciplinary of the book