The 65th Congress of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) was held in Sofia from 25 to 28 August 2026, under the theme “Global Challenges and Regional Responses in a Transition Era.” It was hosted by the Bulgarian Regional Science Association together with Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and the University of National and World Economy, and, as the Bulgarian News Agency reported, brought together more than 600 researchers from 55 countries.
UR-WISE participated with a special session, “Advancing Data-Based Policy-Making for Sustainable Urban and Regional Development”, and with seven papers in the programme carrying members of the project team.
The session was proposed and chaired by the UR-WISE team of the Faculty of Economics, University of Niš (FEUN) and ERSA Serbia.
The first sitting carried “Academia as a Driver of Data-Based Policy-Making: Bibliometric Insights for Sustainable Urban and Regional Development” by Marina Stanojević (FEUN) and Valentina Ivanić of the Institute of Economic Sciences, which reads the output of long-running Serbian research conferences as a data source for policy intelligence, and finds both a shift towards sustainability themes and the “white spaces” where policy demand is rising faster than institutional recognition.
The second sitting carried four. Tanja Obradović, the project's Senior Researcher, presented “Localising the Sustainable Development Goals in Post-Transition Urban Contexts: The Case of the First Voluntary Local Review of the City of Niš”, on Serbia's first Voluntary Local Review, 26 indicators across 12 Sustainable Development Goals, prepared in 2023 and 2024.
“From Fragmented Data to Territorial Intelligence: Strengthening Evidence-Based Urban and Regional Policy in Serbia”, by Jelena J. Stanković, Ivana Marjanović and Marina Stanojević, took Serbia as a case of a transition economy where data-based policy making is both urgently needed and unevenly implemented, and drew on the research behind the Best City report to show what evidence can and cannot yet do at city and regional level.
“Regenerative Economy, Resilience and Network Connectivity in the Western Balkans” was the project's largest paper of the congress, with nine authors: Umut Türk (Abdullah Gül University), John Östh, Marina Toger, Aura Reggiani, Claudia van der Laag, Marija Džunić, Ivana Marjanović, Marina Stanojević and Jelena J. Stanković. It follows population change in 65 urban areas of the Western Balkans between 2011 and 2021 inside a spatial interaction framework, and finds that local amenities and regenerative capacity at the origin city go with greater resilience, while a shared language measurably lowers the friction between places.
The sitting closed with “Connecting the Divided City: A Space Syntax Analysis of Belfast and Its Policy Implications”, by Claudia van der Laag of Oslo Metropolitan University with Eirik Toresønn Myrvold, Isin Can Traunmüller of the City of Linz and Ruth Hunter of Queen's University Belfast.
Work with UR-WISE co-authors also ran outside the special session, on Wednesday 26 August. “Matrix-Free Spatial Autoregressive Modeling Using the EquiPop Neighborhood Structure”, by Umut Türk, John Östh and Marina Toger, was given in the general session on statistical and econometric methods. “Digital Text Analysis of Tourists' Sentiments and Spatial Choices in Global Cities”, by Umut Türk, John Östh, Karima Kourtit and professor Peter Nijkamp, was given in the general session on tourism and culture. Professor Nijkamp delivered the congress keynote the same afternoon.
Both are published by ERSA: the full congress programme, session by session, and the book of abstracts.
UR-WISE will continue to take its research on resilient urban and regional futures to the places where regional science sets its agenda.