The principal topic of this year’s conference concerns flows of capital, information, technology, notions, sounds and symbols.

The Warsaw Regional Forum is organized on a regular basis once every two years by the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, together with the Ministry of Development Republic of Poland, Committee of Geographical Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish Geographical Society.

To date, there have been seven meetings held under the common title Warsaw Regional Forum: Central and Eastern Europe: Changing spatial patterns of human activity (2004), The core and peripheral regions in Central and Eastern Europe (2005), Contemporary dilemmas of spatial development in Europe (2007), Networking in the European, regional and local space (2009), Functional regions–towards a new paradigm of territorial and cohesion policy (2011), Territorial Capital–concepts, indicators & policy (2013) and Territorial uncertainty and vulnerability as a challenge for urban and regional policy (2015). During those seven meetings of the Warsaw Regional Forum more than 330 papers have been presented. The research studies dealt with a wide spectrum of themes and the analysis contained within them covered a wide spectrum of spatial scales – ranging from that of the European through the national and regional, to the local level. The participants of all seven conferences came from 30 different countries.

The principal topic of the 2017 conference will be concentrated around flows of capital, information, technology, notions, sounds, and symbols (Castells 1997). These flows have become a process that shape the economy, politics and primarily the space. The spatial structure is determined not so much by places, but by the network of mutual linkages and by flows developing between these places. The problem of linkages and flows has become a subject that combines many different fields of science, including especially these disciplines that deal with spatial aspects (such as geography, spatial management and regional economy). Numerous research projects that are carried on in the EU and in the particular countries are directly or indirectly concerned with this process of interaction (inter alia under HORIZON 2020 and ESPON 2020). One of the goals of the Warsaw Regional Forum 2017 is to deepen the knowledge about linkages and flows by way of exchange of thoughts and experiences between scholars representing different disciplines and projects.

The organizers invite submission of papers concerning different understanding in various countries of the concept of space of flows based on a foundation of different sciences across multiple disciplines (geography, economy, sociology, regional studies, spatial planning, environmental studies, etc.) as well as on the basis of political documents of varied level. Certainly, as a complementary result of this discussion, articles will be particularly welcome referring to concrete and tangible cases regarding dynamics and structure of territorial capital of European regions, including the results of research projects touching upon the aforesaid subject matter.

More information can be found at: https://www.igipz.pan.pl/wrf_2017.html.