R. B. Singh - Practices in Regional Science and Sustainable Regional Development: Experiences from the Global South

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Regional Science aims to foster the exchange of ideas and promote studies focusing on the region and utilizing tools, methods, and theoretical frameworks designed for regional analysis, as well as concepts, procedures, and analytical techniques of the various social and other sciences. The efforts of Professor Walter Isard set the foundation stone of Regional Science during the 1960s. However, the first two decades in this millennium has been witnessing a series of events that calls for a serious review of the tools and techniques that could reinstall the Regional Science at the center of development planning. The 2008s Global Economic Crisis was a severe alert to the policy researchers and policymakers to speculate that the regional crises are often more important than the national crisis. The scholarly world witnessed that some regions, lagging severely in terms of economic and societal developments, need to see their economic base renewed, which inevitably require to involve all actorsnatural, economic, social, political, and educationto work together proactively.

The issues of climate change have stormed the laboratories of almost all fields of knowledge. A deep insight into the matter of how the regional version of deflected climatic parameters is excerpting impacts on regional society or economy to shape the human development of that region has become a relevant academic discourse throughout the globe. Above all, the pandemic outbreak of the novel COVID-19, spreading violently in almost all parts of the globe, is not only a severe health hazard, but it also brings to fore the long-term social, economic, and behavioral implications that mankind will be facing during the decades to come. All these things have been emerging as the newer research dimensions under the purview of Regional Science.

Alongside the needs, the principle methodological changes incorporated in the Regional Science have a significant concern. The statistical models, the geographic information systems (GIS), and the even broader area of geoinformatics, and the applications of big data to Regional Science, have become instrumental in analyzing the region and imbricating the development plans.

The use of the phrase Global South marks a shift from a central focus on development or cultural difference toward an emphasis on geopolitical relations of power. However, the most common things about the Global South nations are that they are mostly (not all) low-income and often politically or culturally marginalized. Besides, there is clear evidence of the uneven spatial distribution of resources, economic activities, literacy, and health condition that make the regional scientists inquisitive.