The Regional Science Association (RSA), a predecessor to the Regional Science Association International (RSAI), was founded as the association for regional science scholars in the USA in the 1950s. Since that time, the new discipline has rapidly diffused in academic circles of geography, economics, civil and traffic engineering, operations research, statistics, and other related disciplines in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The diffusion was fostered by the organization of regional science associations, some of which were recognized as RSA Sections, at the national or regional level of one country or at the international level of multiple countries. Historically, the diffusion was accelerated by activities of the international federations consisting of regional science associations established in Europe and the Pacific Rim. In 1989 the RSA was reorganized into the RSAI as an international body in order to encompass a broader spectrum of regional scientific activities in the world. It was an international association that comprised three super-regional organizations, namely the North American Regional Science Council (NARSC), the European Regional Science Association (ERSA), and the Pacific Regional Science Conference Organization (PRSCO).

Regional science journals have developed together with development of the RSA and the RSAI. The RSA journal was started with Papers of Regional Science, succeeded by Papers in Regional Science, and recent Regional Science Policy and Practice has been added. RSAI Sections now have high quality journals in their own language, and furthermore many international publishers have released regional science journals of high quality, too.

Considering the situation around regional science journals, Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science (APJRS) should accomplish the following two missions:

  1. 1.

    Provide an international platform for scholars in the field of regional science and related disciplines, especially for scholars in the Asia-Pacific in order to disseminate their original and unique high-quality research results into the world. Thus, it is expected that the journal will contribute to the development of RSAI in the Asia-Pacific. This is just as many prestigious regional scientists write in their congratulatory messages in this issue. NARSC and ERSA had established and owned de facto journals of regional science in the early stage of RSA development. On the other hand, the PRSCO hasn’t had its own international journal as long. The RSAI has recently established the fourth super-regional organization, the Latin American and the Caribbean Regional Science Association (LACRSA), which partially overlaps with PRSCO. In this sense, the mission is also timely; and

  2. 2.

    APJRS is an open journal, not only for regional scientists, but also other scholars with different views and perspectives. The Asia-Pacific is diversified in every sense: culture, history, geology, geography, political institution, etc. Regional science has an advantage in addressing urgent emerging issues in the Asia-Pacific since regional science intrinsically takes inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research approaches. This openness is essential for any inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research. Therefore, APJRS also provides an open platform on which different views and perspectives of regional scientists, as well as scholars in related disciplines can communicate with each other by creating synergy.

It is necessary for any good journal to be sustained by a professional, efficient, and dedicated editorial board. I feel very proud of our editorial team, as it consists of internationally well-known experts in diversified fields and countries. We are capable of fulfilling our missions that I am sure of.

We must accept an aspect of science (and technology development as a process of returning fruits to the society) that it has expanded our knowledge through a self-evolutional process of specialization to establish disciplines. However, we should also pay attention to the fact that, as such specialization advances, it may result in a kind of purifying selection, which sometimes eliminates inconvenient views by closing one’s eyes to what is actually happening, especially a la metaphysics. Regional and urban issues of the Asia-Pacific regions are so diversified, and readers will realize that established regional science methodologies still have space for advancement and deepening.

The journal has adopted the Research Data Policy, which encourages authors to upload their research data to repositories, which are open to the public subject to authors’ preference and confirmation. Research data include information materials of tedious and long mathematical derivation processes, structural equations of a large-scale simulation model and its source code, etc. Springer Nature provides a research data policy support for authors and editors, which provides advice about compliance. Adoption of such policy provides more effective soft infrastructure for reproduction of critical results and conclusions, increasing traceability of experiments such as mathematical derivation, statistical analysis, simulation, etc. We can expect that such a policy assists the journal to become open to diversified views and perspectives of regional science-related disciplines, especially by strengthening the peer-review process.

The journal thus aims to expand the frontiers of regional science through world-wide diffusion of modern regional science intrinsically developed and advanced by scholars in Asia-Pacific.

I welcome submission of manuscripts by any scholars who are interested in regional science, especially focusing on topics related to the Asia-Pacific regions. I highly welcome manuscript submission by young scholars who should be the core of regional science community in the future.

Finally, I thank the editorial team, the technical team, and potential contributors, who are promoting one of the most prosperous journals of regional science.

Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Yoshiro Higano