I Conferences and Workshops

Industry Engagement in Rome | 2022

Photo: Tom Barnes, Sandrine Labory, Andrew Beer, Sally Weller, David Bailey, Lisa De Propris, Marco Bellandi

Managing the Impacts of Economic Change in Cities and Regions

In November this year, we conducted a workshop in partnership with our partner organisation Australian Catholic University and Chief Investigator Dr. Tom Barnes.

The following is an address from Prof Patrizio Bianchi, UNESCO Chair of Education that set the tone for what was a wonderful workshop.

Video: Prof Patrizio Bianchi, UNESCO Chair of Education

This workshop assembled leading scholars of regional studies and political economy from Europe and Australia to consider ways in which actors in cities and regions—government entities, businesses and civic organisations—can respond to the challenges of labour market shocks. These challenges are brought about by internal processes such as national economic downturns and the technological disruptions of Industry 4.0 (3D printing, Artificial Intelligence and robots), as well as by external processes such as decisions by overseas parent companies to close or relocate plants or the reverberating impacts of transformative global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the crisis in Ukraine. Other examples include the decision by overseas firms to close Australia’s automotive manufacturing sector or the impacts of Britain’s ‘Brexit’ withdrawal from the European Union on prospects for British manufacturing. 

Participants included:

Presentations