Decision of the Evaluation Commission!

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The Commission for the Evaluation of the candidatures for the International Award on Territorial Development 2017 finished its assessment and decided the assignment of the awards to the following people and organizations:

Section Essays/Scholars
Alfonso Valenzuela (Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Morelos) (Mexico), who presented the paper “Formal/Informal/Illegal: los tres circuitos de la Economia Espacial en América Latina”; the commission appreciates the wide and differentiated research themes on territorial development and organization with an interdisciplinary approach, including “field research” and social practices.

Moreover the Commission decided to assign three special Awards for scholars and experts of territorial development.

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• Special Award in memory of Bernardo Secchi for the long time works on territorial and regional development since the 1960s, which introduced innovative interpretations, thanks to the firm attention to territorial changes through the wide use of “field research” to understand emerging processes and the role of public and private actors.

• Special Award to the career of Stuart Holland for the important papers and books on regional development written since the 1970s (cf.“Capital versus the Regions”) till nowadays, with the promotion of ideas and project proposals which affected significantly regional development strategies.

• Special Award to the career of Fabrizio Barca, coordinator of the independent EU report “An Agenda for a reformed cohesion policy”, for the long time and firm work in connecting and interacting the research world and policy makers, especially in the field of territorial development policies, till the last project on rural and small cities areas (“interior lands”) in Italy.

Section Young Researcher/PhD
Amr El Kilany, The transition process of industrial clusters in developing countries: the case of Damietta (Egypt), presented and discussed at Insubria University; the thesis is based on “field research” with an international comparison (with the furniture district in Brianza, Italy).

A specific mention has been assigned to the theses of Claire Court (University of Barcelona) and Diego Martinez Godoy (AgroParisTech-Université Paris Saclay).

Section Territories
Ex-aequo to the Eurocidade de Guadiana (transborder region between Portugal and Spain), for the project “Cooperação transfronteiriça para o desenvolvimento e a coesão territorial” and to the Industrial district of Ibi (Spain) for its evolutionary trends and strategies.

Section Enterprises/Organizations
RSI Radio Televisione Svizzera Italiana, for the series of services on "Industrial districts: the cooperation of small firms and territories against the large firms' size" in the programme "Tempi Moderni".

A specific mention has been assigned to the following firms/organizations: a) Caldas University (Colombia) for the great impact of the University’s third mission on educational training for the community, on research participation, on the construction of a shared interpretation and social projects and planning; b) L’Albero del Pane, baker firm located in Visso, in the Sibillini-Apennines mountains, which after the ruin provoked by the earthquake of last October was able (through the access to crowding funds) to restart the production before Easter with all the previous employees; c) the network “Rede des Aldeias do Xisto”, twenty seven interior villages of the Centre Region in Portugal, which represents an example of territorial coordination to promote culture, landscape and historical heritage, and the reciprocal knowledge of places to reinforce the cooperation for territorial socio-economic dynamics.