ISINI-14 Wroclaw -Online Conference - 23-25 September 2020
No participation fee!
The fourteenth international conference of the International Society for the Intercommunication of New Ideas (ISINI) will be organized by the WSB University in Wroclaw (Poland) in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Goerlitz (Germany). The planned dates for online meetings are 23 until 25 September 2020. You are cordially invited to submit full papers or summaries that are within the scope of ISINI.
The purpose of the Society is: to foster the discovery and dissemination of new ideas, in particular in economics and other social sciences, to test these ideas and to study the application to problems of the real world. The Society aspires to realize its purpose by creating and upholding an environment where economists meet, consult and cooperate with scholars from other disciplines.
The major instrument of ISINI has until now been its conference. So next to the usual economists, we hope to welcome scholars in Wroclaw who are working in other social sciences (including law, legal science, history and political science), who are cooperating with economists in common research projects or who are doing research in areas where both sides could benefit from an exchange of ideas. We hope to stimulate research that focuses on a cluster of pressing actual social economic problems. The world economy and its constituent political entities see themselves confronted with a host of problems, of which climate change is perhaps the most extensively discussed. But if we want to preserve or build up a decent and well-functioning society, other areas deserve serious discussion as well.
To strengthen the conference's function as a platform for contacts, consultation and cooperation between scholars from different disciplines, the fourteenth ISINI conference will focus on the following topics:
1. Andries Nentjes memorial session. Environmental economics, law and policy in the context of economic and sustainable development
2. Sustainable Regional Development Compass
3. Special CEVI session on Energy and Valuation Issues
4. Loss management in a disintegrating Europe
5. Challenges in transport and transport system
6. Transdisciplinarity and distributional issues
7. Transition and structural change in Europe’s coal regions
8. Applications of big data in management and Economics
9. Papers outside the above mentioned topics.
We invite scholars to contribute to an exchange of ideas on the subjects mentioned above’.Participants will present their accepted abstracts of papers and have them discussed in group sessions or possibly plenary sessions. Proposals for full sessions with presentation of 3 to 4 papers connected by a unifying theme are also welcome. Proposals for well prepared panel discussions are also of interest to us.
Submission deadline for proposals for a session:
The deadline for submission is September 1 2020. to Mail to (see particular sessions – in case of questions: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
The proposal should contain the following information: name of the session's organizer(s) and his/her/their affiliation, e-mail and postal address; title of the session, a short description of the theme, including a motivation and explanation how each of the papers / presentations bears on the theme; for each paper / presentation in the session: title, name of the author and a short abstract; confirmation of the presenting authors.
Notification of acceptance will be sent no later than September 5 2020.
- Andries Nentjes Memorial Session - environmental economics, law and policy in the context of economic and sustainable development
Andries Nentjes (Professor Emeritus, University of Groningen, The Netherlands),
ISINI is much indebted to Professor Andries Nentjes, who passed away in March 2019, at the age of 80.
Andries Nentjes was Professor of Economics and Public Finance at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands during more than thirty years.
His celebrated academic work encompasses history of economic thought, macroeconomics, post-Keynesian theories and his favorite subject: environmental economics. He is considered a founding father of the environmental economics in the Netherlands. His paper with Simon Kuipers (1973) that elaborated the relation between increasing costs of pollution and limits to economic growth triggered new research. This innovative paper on sustainable growth showed that specific conditions need to be fulfilled regarding technical progress in order to prevent economic stagnation.
As an environmental voluntarist in front of the European Parliament and Dutch government and as supporter of social entrepreneurs Andries fostered environmental organizations, business and policy making. Andries also helped to revive ISINI. His dedication to science, his warm personality and his sense of humor will never be forgotten.
With this year's conference we wish to honor Professor Andries Nentjes by doing exactly what he always loved: the academic debate in a critical, friendly and supportive manner.
Papers are invited for the Memorial Session, and publication in a Special Issue of the Central European Review of Economics and Management (www.cerem-review.eu) to the honor of Andries Nentjes. Papers for this special issue can also be submitted without conference participation. An important aim of CEREM is to stimulate open-minded discussion of new ideas, new applications of old ideas as well as development of interdisciplinary approaches to current challenges in economics and management. In the spirit of Andries Nentjes scientific heritage, we invite papers on the following issues:
- Current developments in environmental economics, environmental law and the political aspects of environmental protection
- Economics of environmental policy (e.g. climate change, biodiversity management)
- Technological innovation and sustainable economic growth
- Environment, growth and sustainability in the history of economic thought, legal sciences and political sciences
- Other topics relevant to environmental economics, environmental law, politics and policy
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020
Edwin Woerdman (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), Yoram Krozer (Sustainable Innovations Academy, The Netherlands) and Joost Platje (WSB University in Wrocław, Poland)
Please send submissions via e-mail to: Prof. Joost Platje (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Prof. Yoram Krozer (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Bibliography:
Nentjes, A., Kuipers, S. (1973), Pollution in a neo-classical world: The classics rehabilitated?, Economics, 121(1), 52-67.
- Sustainable Regional Development Compass
The concept of sustainable development encompasses economic, social and environmental goals with the use of sustainable techniques for, e.g., better agricultural production, energy use, natural resources management or urban planning. Sustainable development is more than a global theory. It is becoming a necessity at the regional and local level. Sustainability of a region addresses the issue of improving quality of inhabitants’ life within the limitations of the global environment. Therefore, a sustainably developing region is wellbeing oriented.
Sustainable development is understood in the category of economic development assuming the availability of certain resources in the region, but as well the region’s capacity to manage them. Therefore, there are two approaches to sustainable development in the region, the product oriented and the process oriented. The first approach is the sustainable development value (e.g. a change, an outcome) that the region provides to its users, while the second approach focuses on processes occurring in the region illustrated in building regional or local development strategies.
It is expected that especially in the European Union the sustainable development principles will be integrated into regional development practices.
We aim to attract the academic contribution on the state-of-the-art or directions of sustainable regional development. We invite interdisciplinary research on challenges and new approaches to the sustainable regional development.. The goal of this session is to create a compass for the future of regions development and sustainability. This compass will help to understand the necessary direction for the regional policymaking on national and the EU levels.
In particular, we look for new indicators, new technologies, new methodologies and new ideas in the following topics (however not limited to) that cover sustainable regional development:
- regional economics
- energy and natural resources
- agriculture and environment
- labor market
- urban planning
- health and consumer economics
Panel organizer: Katarzyna Kurek, Johan van Ophem (Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands)
Please send submissions via e-mail to: Katarzyna Kurek (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Dr. Johan van Ophem (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
- Special CEVI session on “Energy and Valuation Issues”
The objective of the CEVI session is to bring together academics and practitioners from all over the world to focus on timely energy finance and investments, financial performance, energy markets and valuation issues in the energy sector worldwide. Specific topics refer to energy issues, and include:
Financial Regulation; Financial Markets; Financial Risks; Asset Pricing; Value at Risk; Capital Structure; Sourcing Capital; Corporate (Re-) Structuring; Corporate Governance; Behavioural Finance; Financial Performance; Cost Control; Financial Accounting; Fiscal and Legal Issues.
Please submit your papers (completed or nearly completed) or participation interest via e-mail to: Dr. Wim Westerman (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Dr. Johan van Ophem (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
- Loss management in a disintegrating Europe
The current processes of globalization have led to a situation where the world has increased faster in complexity than knowledge has increased (see Taleb, 2012). This disputable argument is based on the idea that the incredible rise after the industrial revolution in international trade, accompanied by lengthening logistic changes consisting of a huge amount of often difficult to identify stakeholders have created a system where processes are difficult to understand. On the other hand, an impressive development of knowledge has taken place. This may create the illusion that we think we know more than we really know (Kahneman, 2011). In this context, it can be expected that any kind of event, change or perceived improvement in business policy or government policy has unexpected side effects. It may weaken a system or organization, and lead to different type of fragilities. It also increases the appearance of so-called Black Swans (Taleb, 2007), low probability and high impact events, which can lead to a threat of irreversible losses (e.g., Fukushima), but also can lead to unexpected positive changes (like the development of the Internet). This is in particular importance in complex and tightly knit systems, where fragilities, bottlenecks, etc. can lead to chain effects (a phenomenon in complex systems) with unpredictable, irreversible and non-linear damage due to the strong interconnectedness (Hardford, 2011; Taleb, 2012).
In the context of the uncertainties around the Brexit process, the question appears whether there are different kinds of vulnerabilities in the European Union, which can lead to different collapse scenarios with significant impact on the functioning of business. As different types of losses can be expected, management of such losses becomes elementary for the survival of organizations, but also administrative units. How to prepare for the disappearance of a market or industry? How to prepare for a loss in export market? How to prepare for a strengthening of integration in the euro zone, when a country or region is outside the euro zone? …….
In this context, we would like to discuss from an interdisciplinary perspective the current state and future of the European Union, with a focus on the following issues:
- What vulnerabilities and weakest links exist in the EU institutional structure?
- Will the EU collapse? Should the EU collapse?
- The future of the EU in the context of: climate policy, refugee policy, democratic deficit, conflicting cultures and world views, and other relevant issues.
- How can companies, administrative units and countries prepare for a collapse scenario? When a collapse is real, how can a disaster scenario be prevented?
Please submit your papers (completed or nearly completed) or participation interest via e-mail to: Prof. Joost Platje (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
- Challenges in transport and transport systems
Transport, transport systems can be considered a kind of public goods, elementary for social and economic development, the functioning of the market, international trade and integration. Currently, the positive effects of transport and transport systems are challenged by environmental issues, its impact on climate change, sustainability of energy supply and capacity problems. As a consequence, the question appears how to support sustainable development of transport systems. Developing countries face challenges in developing proper transport and logistic infrastructure supporting their developmental aims. In developed countries, innovation and technological development have significant impact on safety, emission, energy efficiency of means of transport, while the demand for passenger transport is tried to be influenced by different types of policies.
While mobility is important for regional and national competitiveness, the mentioned negative impacts and capacity problems may pose a serious challenge to economic development at local and national scale. Increasing demand for passenger and good transport leads to serious congestion problems, destruction of urban ecosystems, reduced functionality of urban ecosystems, etc.
This session of ISINI 2020 invites scientists, policy makers, and representatives from business and institutions involved in transport. Articles and presentations may deal with case studies, empirical research and theoretical reflections on the following issues:
- International transport (e.g., the importance of transport for global trade, transport in global supply chains, intermodal and multimodal transport, development of transnational and global transport systems).
- Urban, local and regional transport (e.g. urban transport policy, sustainable urban transport, development of urban/local/regional transport systems).
- Transport and optimization of logistic chains.
- Transport behaviour (e.g. determinants of transport behaviour, demand management).
- Innovativeness in transport (e.g. technological solutions, commercialization of inventions, socio-economic importance of new technology).
- The social role of transport (e.g. transport and social exclusion, demographic challenger, safety issues).
- Transport, environment and climate change (e.g. the concept of circular economy in the transport sector, negative environmental externalities, the future of transport versus availability of fossil fuels, low-emission transport).
- The limits to ever increasing mobility in the context of capacity of transport systems.
- Other challenges in transport.
Panel organizer: Dr. Monika Paradowska (Wrocław University, Poland).
Please send submissions via e-mail to: Dr. Monika Paradowska (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Prof. Joost Platje (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
Bibliography:
Harford, T. (2011), Adapt – why success always starts with failure, Little, Brown book group, London.
Kahneman D. (2011), Thinking, Fast and Slow, Penguin Books, London.
Nentjes, A., Kuipers, S. (1973), Pollution in a neo-classical world: The classics rehabilitated?, Economics, 121(1), 52-67.
Taleb, N.N. (2007), The Black Swan - the impact of the highly improbable, Penguin Books, London.
Taleb, N.N. (2012), Antifragile - things that gain from disorder, Penguin Books, London.
6. Transition and structural change in Europe’s coal regions
Transdisciplinarity
Ongoing specialization and fragmentation in research thwart scientific cooperation within economic science and even more so within economics and other disciplines. Transdisciplinarity refers to research that bridges the conventional dividing lines. We are looking forward to receiving research papers of this type. Contributions on how to structure and organize academic education in multi- or interdisciplinary studies or settings, are also welcome. Discussions on the challenges and bottlenecks, successes and failures in such domains as management science, environmental sciences, regional science, sciences of the state (Staatswissenschaften) may open new vistas.
Participants will present their accepted papers and have them discussed in group sessions or (perhaps) plenary sessions. Proposals for full sessions with presentation of papers or well prepared panel discussions are also of interest to us.
Please send submissions via e-mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
Markets, Money and Democracy
The world economy and its constituent political entities see themselves confronted with a host of problems, of which climate change is perhaps the most extensively discussed. But if we want to preserve or build up a decent and well-functioning society, other areas deserve serious discussion as well. We invite scholars to contribute to an exchange of ideas on relevant subjects, such as:
The future of employment
Democracy and the rule of law
The open society
Alternative monetary systems
Ethics and economics
Please send submissions via e-mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
7. Transdisciplinarity and distributional issues
The out-phasing of lignite and hard coal due to the urgent need to achieve GHG-emission reduction targets as required by the Paris Agreement and EU’s climate policies, is an ongoing reality in Europe. Since 2012 the coal power generation was reduced by almost a third. The European Green Deal, presented by the Commission in December 2019, aims at making Europe the first climate-neutral bloc in the world by 2050. Although the shift to a low-carbon economy presents many opportunities, economic and social impacts in many coal regions cannot not be ignored. The structural change poses considerable challenges to coal-mining regions: for instance in East Germany (“Lausitzer Revier”), EUR 1.8bn of value added is at risk. In order to prevent political frictions, an ambitious climate policy should go hand in hand with participation and social justice, i.e. a Just Transition that ensures that the coal regions will not become (perceived) losers of energy system transformation (cf. WBGU, 2018). Structural change in coal regions is a currently important - but certainly only a first example of a transformation driven by climate policy and the international sustainability agenda. The commitment of the Paris Climate Convention means that fundamental upheavals of our economic system are unavoidable. Processes of structural change will occur in many other industries and regions. The switch from the combustion engine to the electric motor will present the automotive industry with a far-reaching transformation task. Another example are the challenges for action in the course of the implementation of decarbonisation strategies in energy-intensive industries.
Against this background we invite contributions of academics, politicians and other actors that are related to the following questions and issues:
- How structural policy and post-transitional policy can be successfully policy support each other in a positive way.
- Opportunities for transnational co-operation in energy transition (e.g., Lausitz in Germany and Lower Silezia in Polane).
- The usefulness of existing transition and transformation theories for guiding the energy transition.
- Innovativeness as a condition for effective structural change.
- Relevant reflections and studies on the issue.
Please submit your papers (completed or nearly completed) or abstract via e-mail to: Prof. Joost Platje (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
Links
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/oil-gas-and-coal/eu-coal-regions
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/oil-gas-and-coal/EU-coal-regions/coal-regions-transition
http://www.just-transition.info/coal-platform
https://wupperinst.org/fa/redaktion/downloads/projects/PhasingOut_Coal_report.pdf
http://www.ifo.de/en/node/42996
8. Applications of big data in management and Economics
This session welcomes papers on Big Data from all fields of business application, such as (but not limited to) Agriculture, Banking, Education, Environment, Economy, Government, Health, Insurance, Information Technology, Marketing, Operations, Public Policy, Human Resources, Manufacturing, Retail, Regulation, Services and Tourism.
This session aims to focus on original research papers of high quality providing practical applications to real-world management / business problems and to bridge the gap between industry and academia.
Contributions from both the academic and the practitioner communities are encouraged. Empirical research, as well as the development of new or modified Big Data applications to address challenging and emerging policy or management/ business problems, will be emphasized. Management-related studies, detailing the execution of Big Data applications in business / economic approaches for policy analysis, among others, are especially solicited.
Please submit your papers (completed or nearly completed) or abstract via e-mail to: Prof. Ali Emrouznejad (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Prof. Joost Platje (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The submission deadline is September 1, 2020. Notification of acceptance: 5 September 2020.
There exists the possibility to publish the paper in a special issue of the Central European Review of Economics and Management, edited by prof. Ali Emrouznejad. For more information: https://www.cerem-review.eu/big-data-and-its-applications-in-management-and-economics/
9. Papers outside the above mentioned topics.