Call for Papers: EMANES Annual Conference 2025

EMANES ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2025: "Towards Regenerative Economies: Pathways for Inclusive, Sustainable and Resilient Development in Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa"

The EMANES Annual Conference provides a forum for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to explore socio-economic trends and regional integration in Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa. Each year, the conference focuses on a key theme reflecting global transformations. The 2025 edition will delve into the concept of regenerative economies—a paradigm that moves beyond sustainability, aiming to restore and enhance the ecological, social, and economic systems upon which prosperity depends.

This year’s theme responds to growing calls for holistic approaches that not only reduce harm but actively restore natural systems, strengthen communities, and build economic resilience. In a time marked by climate change, conflict, digital disruption, and inequality, regenerative development offers a compelling vision for a future rooted in renewal, interconnectedness, and wellbeing.

AIMS AND TOPICS

The EMANES Annual Conference 2025 invites contributions that explore how regenerative economic approaches can transform the socio-economic landscape of Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa. These approaches promote systemic change, balancing human and environmental needs, circularity, equity, and local resilience while leveraging innovation, entrepreneurship, and inclusive governance.

Regenerative economies emphasize not just climate mitigation or adaptation, but restoration, reciprocity, and resilience. They require rethinking how value is created and measured—prioritizing wellbeing, cultural richness, biodiversity, and planetary boundaries alongside productivity and growth. Within this framework, the EMANES 2025 Conference seeks papers that engage with new metrics, financing mechanisms, institutional models, and community-led strategies that enable regenerative development.

This year’s conference aims to:

• Advance the theoretical and practical understanding of regenerative economies;
• Explore the transformative potential of circularity, nature-based solutions, and place-based innovation;
• Investigate the socio-economic and institutional reforms needed to operationalize regenerative development;
• Promote partnerships across the EU-Mediterranean-Africa region to co-create inclusive and prosperous futures.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

We welcome submissions of high-quality, unpublished manuscripts exploring topics such as, but not limited to:

• Principles and Metrics of Regenerative Economies: New economic thinking, wellbeing indicators, and frameworks to assess regenerative outcomes;
• Circular Economy and Systems Innovation: Designing out waste, regenerating natural systems, and promoting circular business models;
• Green and Blue Transitions: Interactions between land-based and marine ecosystem regeneration, clean energy, agroecology, and sustainable mobility;
• Place-Based Innovation and Territorial Cohesion: Local development strategies rooted in community engagement, cultural assets, and social equity;
• Regenerative Finance and Investment: Blended finance, impact investment, green and nature-related financial disclosures, and novel funding instruments for long-term regeneration;
• Resilient Infrastructure and Nature-Based Solutions: Integration of green infrastructure, water systems, and biodiversity into urban and rural planning;
• Labor Markets and Skills for Regenerative Development: The role of green jobs, care work, community organizing, and lifelong learning;
• Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge Systems: Valuing local and ancestral wisdom in regenerative practices and decision-making;
• Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation for Regeneration: Business models, cooperatives, and startups contributing to environmental and social restoration;
• Health, Wellbeing and Inclusive Development: Intersections between planetary health, mental and physical wellbeing, and regenerative practices;
• Regional Integration and Governance: Policy coordination, participatory institutions, and cross-border cooperation for a regenerative transition;
• Regenerative Cities and Rural-Urban Synergies: Rethinking spatial development for circularity, food systems, housing, and mobility;
• Brain Capital and Natural Capital Nexus: Leveraging human cognition, skills, and creativity in harmony with natural systems for inclusive regeneration.
• Papers addressing regional complementarities, integration, and policy coherence between Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa are especially encouraged.

EMANES THEMATIC SCOPE

The Euro-Mediterranean and African Network of Economic Studies (EMANES) promotes research supporting long-term socio-economic visions that are inclusive, transparent, sustainable, equitable, employment-driven, and regenerative. Contributions that align with the broader EMANES research agenda are welcome, including:

• Institutions and labor markets
• Role of MSMEs in inclusive development
• Social business and inclusion
• Health and wellbeing policies
• Creative, cultural, and knowledge economies
• Low-carbon and circular economies
• Human capital, migration, and job creation
• Regional integration and resilience
• Scenario analysis and economic foresight

IMPORTANT DATES

• Deadline for Submission: October 31, 2025
• Notification of Acceptance: November 10, 2025
• Registration Deadline (accepted author): November 15, 2025
• Conference dates: December 10 (half day), 11–12, 2025

Please visit the EMANES Annual Conference website for more info and submit your full manuscript in PDF format via email to: emanes.conference@euromed-economists.org

CONFERENCE SPECIAL ISSUE: ECONOMIC NOTES
Selected papers will be considered for a special issue of the Economic Notes Journal, offering visibility to innovative contributions on regenerative economic strategies.

PRIZE FOR THE BEST PAPER
There will be two Best Paper Awards of EUR 2,000 each sponsored by the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association

CO-CHAIRS:

• Prof. Rym Ayadi, EMEA
• Dr. Cinzia Alcidi, CEPS
• Carlo Sessa, EMEA
• Prof. Giovanni Ferri, LUMSA University
• Prof. Martin Lukac, Czech University of Life Sciences
• Garyfallia (Fay) Selimi, European Public Law Organization (EPLO)

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

• Philippe Adair, Université Paris-Est Créteil
• Sami Ben Naceur, International Monetary Fund
• Barbara Casu, Business School, City St George’s, University of London
• Ralph Chami, Blue Green Future, Former IMF
• Najat El Mekkaoui, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL
• Claudia Girardone, Essex Business School, University of Essex
• Giorgia Giovannetti, University of Florence
• Basma Majerbi, University of Victoria
• Raul Ramos, University of Barcelona
• Dorothea Schäfer, Editor-in-Chief of Eurasian Economic Review
• George Zestos, Christopher Newport University in Virginia

ORGANISING COMMITTEE:

• Yeganeh-Forouheshfar, EMEA Senior Researcher
• George Christopoulos, EMEA Intelligence & Communication Officer
• Maria Ruiz de Cossío, EMEA Senior Project Officer
• Paula Pazos Puig, EMEA Researcher
• Christine Devisser, Project Manager
• Anna Santamaria, EMEA Administrative Officer
• Tiago Zibecchi, EMEA Researcher
• Daniel Luque, EMEA Assistant Administrative Officer

ORGANISERS
This year’s EMANES Annual Conference will be hosted in Barcelona by the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA) and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in collaboration with the Circular Economy and Climate Institute of the European Public Law Organisation – EPLO, and the EU Funded Projects ReForest (Project Nr. 101060635) and CROSS-REIS (Project Nr. 101136834).

For more information please visit:

EMNES 2025 Annual Conference: https://conference2025.emnes.org/ 
EMNES Previous Conferences: https://conference2024.emnes.org/previous-conferences/