In September 1977 a "Regional Science Symposium" was held at the Faculty
of Economics of the University of Goningen in the Netherlands. The
impetus in organizing this symposium was the recent estab- lishmen t at
the F acuIty of Economics of a group engaged in teaching and research
within the field of regional science. The aim of the symposium was to
familiarize university members with regional science and to introduce
the new group to both the national and international scene. Two separate
topics of potential interest to both researchers and policy-makers were
selected. The first theme, spatial inequalities and regional
development, was chosen because of its central place in regional
science. Authors from several disciplines were asked to approach this
theme from a general, policy-oriented point of view. This ensured the
spotlighting of the various dimensions of spatial inequality and its
implications for regional policy. The results of their efforts have been
collected in a volume entitled Spatial Inequalities and Regional
Development. The second theme focussed on spatial statistical analysis.
This branch of statistics is a relatively new one. It is receiving
growing attention from researchers in the field of applied regional
science. The conference dealing with this topic concentrated on recent
research results related to the use of appropriate statistical and
econometric methods for analyzing spatial data. The papers con- cerned
have been collected in another volume, entitled Exploratory and
Explanatory Statistical Analysis of Spatial Data.
