This is an invitation and call for papers for a small-scale conference on the politics of ‘the region’ in contemporary policy transformations, co-organized by the Critical and Interpretive Public Administration Research (CIPA) colloquium of the Netherlands Institute of Governance (NIG), and Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM), Erasmus University Rotterdam.
- Date
- Tuesday 30 Jun 2026, 09:30 - 17:30
- Type
- Conference
- Spoken Language
- English
- Location
University of Utrecht
- Ticket information
The conference will be held at Utrecht University. Registration is required. There is no fee required to participate. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
The politics of the region
Regional areas are increasingly being (re)discovered and addressed by policymakers, politicians and practitioners as places for organizing public services. ‘The region’ has emerged as a guiding concept, scale, mechanism, instrument or framework to address pressing societal issues. This suggest an underlying belief that the region can serve as a policy strategy to break through institutional silos that prevent networked ways of working to address the needs and preferences for local populations. The growing emphasis on the region tends to imply that regions are bounded geographical and administrative entities that are well-defined and usable for policy strategies. This assumption overlooks the ways in which regions are continuously (re)produced, maintained and contested between and across administrative, institutional, organizational, and network levels, and the power dynamics involved in these processes. The region is, therefore, not a pre-given entity, but one that is actively constituted through the interactions of diverse actors.
A critical-interpretive lens
From this perspective, the growing prominence of the region in policy transformations further invites and initiates public and scholarly debates on its provisional, political and multi-layered nature. It raises a range of administrative and institutional questions that benefit from a critical-interpretive lens:
- How are regions made?
- What role do regions play in driving policy changes in different public domains, and what does this mean for the delivery of public services?
- How does the patchwork of regional boundaries work out in practice and how are policies coordinated over regional boundaries?
- How can democratic legitimacy be sustained? And how do regional decision-making processes come about?
- How can the region be made an object of inspection for public services?
- How to account for structural regional differences in terms of network capital?
- How do regional dynamics feed back into traditional policy processes?
Themes
In order to structure discussions about the politics of the region in policy transformations, we distinguish three interrelated sub themes:
- The region as a concept
- The region as a governing practice
- The region as a research field
These themes lead to dedicated plenary blocks and parallel panel sessions during the conference day.
Conference aim
The aim of this small-scale conference is to critically reflect on the region in policy transformations. From a critical-interpretative lens, the conference aims to move beyond taken-for-granted understandings of regions as pre-existing, bounded territories. Through plenary sessions and panel discussions, it seeks to problematize, refine and contribute to current analyses of the region in policy shifts and bring together different generations of researchers, (master’s) students, and policymakers that study or work with the region.
Conference set up
The conference will take place on 30 June 2026, from 9:30 to 17:30 CET. The program includes a plenary session followed by parallel sessions. The plenary session features thought-provoking keynote speakers, after which participants break out into sub-sessions focused on providing feedback on ongoing research work. In this call for papers, we invite researchers, both junior and senior, to participate in and contribute to the conference. We also invite (master) students, policymakers, politicians and practitioners to join the conference and engage in the discussions.
Practicalities
Interested applicants are invited to submit abstracts of approximately 500 words before the deadline of 27 April 2026 at 9:00 CET. The selected applicants are to present their work during one of the panel sessions during the conference. We also offer the possibility to present other contributions (e.g. a research program with preliminary findings, or a presentation based on a dissertation). Please send your abstract to the organizers (see contact information below).
Download invitation and call for abstract
Registration
- More information
Please do not hesitate to contact the organizers if there are any questions regarding the invitation and open call:
Dr. Oemar van der Woerd (vanderwoerd@eshpm.eur.nl)
Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus University RotterdamDr. Sam Muller (s.h.a.muller@uu.nl)
Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht University
