The eighth edition of the international conference “Rethinking Clusters 2025 in New Geopolitical and Sustainability Dynamics: Exploring Emerging Markets” will be held in-person in Itajaí, SC, Brazil.
Conference themes include, but are not limited to:
- The sustainability of places: industrial districts, clusters, regions, and ecosystems
- The transformative power of artificial intelligence, big data, block-chain, and Industry 4.0
- Culture, creativity, and tourism and their effects on sustainable development of places
- Innovation ecosystems and networks: agents’ positions, structure and dynamics
- Smart cities, urban development, peripheries and marginal areas
- Inequality mitigation, social innovation, and wellbeing: organizations, individuals, and communities
- Exploring the dark side of innovation: the unexpected outcomes of the socio-technological progress
- The rise of hostility: how do populism, nationalism, conflicts, and terrorism change economies and places
- Global value chain and sustainable local development
- International Entrepreneurship and innovation in places
- Competitiveness and innovation in industrial districts, clusters, regions, and ecosystems
- Exploring Geopolitical Shifts: Strategies for Enhancing Cluster Resilience and Sustainability
- Special Session: What’s behind the Ecological Transition? Investigating Individual and Community Engagement in Firms, Clusters, and Regional Ecosystems
Special Sessions
Update – What’s behind the Ecological Transition? Investigating Individual and Community Engagement in Firms, Clusters, and Regional Ecosystems
Session Organizers:
Silvia Rita Sedita, Dept. of Economics and Management “Marco Fanno”, University of Padua, Italy Full Professor of Management and Deputy Director of the Executive Master in Open Innovation Management at the University of Padova. She teaches courses on Sustainable Business Models & Sustainable Marketing and Innovation (Master’s Degree in Management for Sustainable Firms) and Economics and Management of Innovation (Master’s Degree in Computer Science). Her research interests focus on new frontiers in innovation management, including digital, social, and environmental challenges.
Email: silvia.sedita@unipd.it
Amir Maghssudipour, Dept. of Economics and Management “Marco Fanno”, University of Padua, Italy
Assistant Professor of Management at the Department of Economics and Management, University of Padova. His research focuses on the social and environmental sustainability of firms and local production systems, exploring how internal dynamics and external conditions shape responsible and inclusive business practices. He also investigates innovation and development processes in industrial districts, business clusters, and renewable energy communities, with an emphasis on collective action for sustainable transitions. He teaches Business Strategy, and Economics and Management of Innovation. His work has been published in national and international journals, as well as in book chapters with international publishers.
Email: amir.maghssudipour@unipd.it
–>> DOWNLOAD THE SPECIAL SESSION CALL FOR PAPERS HERE <<–
Please note that papers must be submitted via the platform, under the track “Special Session: What’s Behind the Ecological Transition?”
Update – PDW Opportunity for Special Issue in European Management Review
Paper Development Workshop: Local inter-organizational networks, entrepreneurship and innovation between openness and closure
We are pleased to announce a Paper Development Workshop (PDW) as part of the upcoming conference. This PDW aims to foster open dialogue and scholarly exchange on the interplay between local firm agglomerations, inter-organizational networks, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The workshop will be held in a blended format, allowing for both in-person and online participation.
The PDW is designed to provide authors with guidance and expertise in the development of their manuscript for potential submission to the Call for Papers – Special Issue in the European Management Review. Full details on the CfP are available here:
–>> DOWNLOAD THE PDW CALL FOR PAPERS HERE <<–
Please note that papers must be submitted via the platform, under the track “PDW for Special Issue in European Management Review”
Important dates:
Submission deadline: 31 August 2025 (1000 words)
Notification of acceptance: 30 September 2025
Full (draft) paper submission (in case of acceptance): 7 November 2025
Special Issue submission period in EMR: 1 February 2026 – 1 April 2026
Attendance at the PDW is not required to submit to the Special Issue
Organizers:
Cristina Boari is full professor of strategy at the Department of Management, University of Bologna. Her research interests include the relations between inter-organizational networks, entrepreneurship, and innovation, with a special focus on geographical clusters and creative industries. For any query, please contact cristina.boari@unibo.it
Francesco Capone is associate professor, Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence. His research interests deal with strategy, innovation and network sciences (open innovation, inter-organisational collaborations for innovation, innovation and networks, etc.) in particular in restricted geographical contexts, such as cities, clusters and industrial districts.
Luciana Castro Gonçalves is associate professor at ESIEE Paris/Gustave Eiffel University, where she holds the responsibility of student entrepreneurship. As a researcher in innovation and co-head of the strategy, HR, and supply chain research division at Management Research Institute in France, she has been publishing in international journals on collaborative innovation within communities, clusters, living labs, and broadly in local networks within territories in France and in Brazil. She is currently leading a research project based on open social innovation, which aims at co-constructing with citizens the inclusive city of the future from the perspective of ageing populations.
Luis Martínez-Cháfer is associate professor, Department of Business Administration and Marketing, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló. His research focuses on Inter-Organizational Networks (ION), with a particular emphasis on Innovation, Knowledge Transfer, Social Capital, and Industrial Clusters. Adopting a relational perspective, his work explores how interactions between organizations shape value creation, collective learning, and regional development.
Liliana Mitkova is full professor in management, the director of Laboratory LITEM, and deputy director of the Graduate School of Economics & Management, University Paris-Saclay, France. Her research focuses on innovation and intellectual property management, with a particular interest in the valuation of invention patents within open innovation projects and the organizational changes associated with these collaborative models.
PhD candidates and young scholars session:
On the first day of the conference (Nov 24th), we reserved a special program exclusively for master’s and PhD candidates and Young Scholars. The Paper Development Workshop (PDW) was designed to support young researchers by providing them with the necessary skills and insights for scientific research. Its main aim is to guide these scholars through the intricate process of writing, submitting, and revising papers for prestigious international journals. The PDW intends to assist young researchers in aligning their work with the latest trends and challenges across various management fields.
This dedicated day offers too, a unique opportunity to participate in a specialized workshop on research methods on cluster analysis. Attendees will engage in discussions about potential advancements in their ongoing projects, exploring cutting-edge methodologies such as experimental research design, social network analysis, natural language processing, and geographical information systems in an informal and interactive setting.
Don’t miss this chance to enhance your research skills and connect with fellow PhD candidates and Young Scholars.
Update – Online PDW Opportunity for PhD Students
We are pleased to announce that the conference will include a dedicated online Paper Development Workshop (PDW) session, exclusively for PhD students. This additional session aims to enable the participation of a small number of students who are unable to travel to Brazil, ensuring broader accessibility while maintaining the in-person character of the event. Selection will be based on the quality of the submitted work and a well-justified need for remote presentation. Interested candidates must select this option at the time of submission, which will be available starting June 15th.
Organizational matters
The conference is scheduled to be held at the Postgraduate Program in Administration at the University of Vale do Itajaí on November 23rd-26th, 2025.
Prospective contributors are encouraged to submit their extended abstracts or full papers to the https://www.rethinkingclusters.org/ starting from June 15th until July 31st, 2025. Extended abstracts should have a minimum of 500 words and a maximum of 2,500 words, allowing for the inclusion of figures, tables, and/or images that do not count towards the word limit. Full papers should not exceed 10,000 words, inclusive of the abstract (150 words), tables, references, figure captions, and endnotes. Notification of acceptance for extended abstracts/full papers will be communicated by August 31st, 2025.
Participants interested in organizing special sessions within the conference are invited to contact the local organizers by July 1st, providing a session description and a list of participants. Notification of acceptance for special session proposals will be communicated by July 31st.
Participation fees:
- Participation fee: early registration €150 (before September 15th, 2025) and €200 (from September 16th onwards).
- Reduced fee for PhD students and young scholars (within 5 years from the PhD degree): €100
- Reduced fee for participants from low and middle-income countries (non-OECD1 and non-OECD2 countries as defined by the World Bank): €70
- Reduced fee for students from low and middle-income countries (non-OECD1 and non-OECD2 countries as defined by the World Bank): €35
The participation fee covers the reception (Nov 23rd), as well as coffee breaks.
Registration starts on August 15th, and all pertinent information will be available on the conference website. We look forward to your participation in this intellectually stimulating event.
–>> DOWNLOAD THE CALL FOR PAPERS HERE <<–
–>> DOWNLOAD THE EVENT POSTER HERE <<–
–>> SUBMIT YOUR PAPER HERE! <<–
