about Junior Network for International Urban Studies
JUNIUS (Junior Network for International Urban Studies) is an informal network aiming to contribute to the ongoing urban studies on particularly European contexts. It is established as an initiative of junior scholars on July 14th, 2005 by the participants of the Xth EUROLOC Summer University on Leadership and Local Democracy that took place between July 4th and 15th, 2005 in Budapest.
The main objective of the network is to enable PhD candidates as well as junior researchers who are interested in urban issues to get into or keep in touch with other colleagues who are also working on similar domains. In addition to facilitating such an interaction between young scholars, JUNIUS has the objective of enabling the mutual exchange of knowledge, experiences, ideas and observations among its members in order to contribute to their ongoing researches. Moreover, JUNIUS envisages to organise scientific activities and to encourage collaborative research and publications with the objective of supporting junior researchers in having a better access to and visibility in the scientific community.
The activity of JUNIUS will be focused on political science studies, particularly on local and regional governmental systems, recent reforms in these domains, local democracy, local leadership and elites, urban and strategic planning as well as regional and international cooperation between cities and regions, however, the network is open to all other related aspects of urban and regional studies.
As a first step of this process, the founding members of JUNIUS have decided to launch a web-site that will serve as the initial platform in realizing the mentioned objectives. The web-site will include information about the research interests of the network’s members so that they can get into touch more easily with those working on similar areas or themes. Secondly, the site will provide up-to-date information about on-going or up-coming events and activities, recent publications and calls for papers or contributions in order to assure a better circulation of information related to urban studies. Moreover, the members of JUNIUS will prepare selected bibliographies on different dimensions of the urban studies with the objective of providing a broad picture on the state of art of the discipline especially for those who are at the initial phases of their researches. Finally, a virtual forum section will be included in the web-site in order to facilitate the spontaneous interaction of the network members.
Apart from these web-based facilities, JUNIUS envisages to initiate a series of working papers to valorise the on-going researches of the network members. These papers submitted by the members will be reviewed by peers and ‘senior’ political scientists and then will be published virtually on the web-site. In case of finding adequate resources, JUNIUS has also the ambition to undertake paper-based publications.
Last but not the least, JUNIUS will attempt to organize social and scientific gatherings of its members in order to enable them to think and work on more concretely on the process and eventual activities.
Founding Members of JUNIUS, July 2005