Panos Manetos

The paper compiles a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood econometric model aiming at detecting and assessing the drivers and the barriers of incoming remittance flows in Europe. The analysis focuses on 297 NUTS 2 level regions and covers the period 2010–2018. For the needs of the analysis, the paper compiles a dataset with interregional remittance flows “regionalising” the corresponding country-level data. The findings of the paper offer substantial insight into the roles of economic, demographic, geographical and institutional factors, not only enriching the discourse in economic integration theory but also presenting practical implications for policymakers engaged in regional economic planning and integration strategies.

Information regarding direct investment flows across European space is scarce, and in most of the cases at the national level. Such a scarcity limits the capacity to undertake the required analyses and to derive the corresponding conclusions on the interrelations among European regions. This is especially so considering that Europe is gradually moving from a “space of States” to a “State of spaces” and from a “space of places’’ to a “space of flows’’. In a nutshell, the pure essence of the European economic integration process is the gradual “thinning” and “melting” of (the artificial) border impediments. Thus, as the process of European economic integration is in full swing, European territories have been experiencing a period of unprecedented change, being transformed into integral parts of the European economic space. The paper uncovers regional typologies in Europe in terms of interregional and intraregional (NUTS 2 level) direct investment flows in year 2018, the year prior to the eruption of the COVID19 pandemic. To this end, the paper compiles an O-D matrix for interregional and intraregional direct investment flows in Europe, constructs tailor-made clustering indicators and employs the k-means clustering technique. Highlights: Compilation of an O-D matrix for interregional and intraregional direct investment flows in Europe Utilization of tailor-made clustering indicators Classification of European regions

Dear Readers, As we begin a new year full of potential and opportunity, we wish each of you much joy and success. As we embark on this journey, we also celebrate a significant milestone – the fifteenth anniversary of the European Journal of Geography. Over the past decade and a half, our journal has become a beacon of excellence in the field of geography and the social sciences. This journey has been characterised by unwavering commitment and tireless dedication, a collective endeavour led by the dedicated members of our editorial team and the European Association of Geographers (EUROGEO). Their diligence and passion have been instrumental in making our journal the respected publication it is today. Looking back on our shared history, we are proud to have published over 310 articles dealing with key topics in geography, planning and development. These scholarly contributions have not only explored and analysed important topics, but have also introduced new ideas (Koutsopoulos, 2022; Manetos et al., 2022), methods (Cramer-Greenbaum, 2023; Krevs et al., 2023; Morawski & Wolff-Seidel, 2023) and data (Hojati & Mokarram, 2016) that will inspire future generations of geographers to transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries. The richness of our content encompasses numerous facets and includes the fields of geography education (Fraile-Jurado & Periáñez-Cuevas, 2023; Humble, 2023; Martínez-Hernández et al., 2023; Mašterová, 2023; Puertas-Aguilar et al., 2023), physical geography (Sánchez-Martínez & Cabrera, 2015), sustainability (Leininger-Frézal et al., 2023; Mally, 2021), tourism (Bandt et al., 2022; Jovanovic et al., 2022), geoinformatics (Batsaris et al., 2023; Vestena et al., 2023), spatial analysis (Agourogiannis et al., 2021; Bartzokas-Tsiompras & Photis, 2020; Wieland, 2022), remote sensing (Younes et al., 2023), maps (Nedkov et al., 2018; Papaioannou et al., 2020), geoinformation (Bartha & Kocsis, 2011; Bartzokas-Tsiompras, 2022), economic (Doukissas et al., 2020; Mikhaylova, 2018), social (Mei & Liempt, 2022; Roșu et al., 2015), political (Kevicky, 2023; Tsitsaraki & Petracou, 2023) and cultural (Gusman & Otero-Varela, 2023) geography, geopolitics (Morgado, 2023) as well as environmental (Burić et al., 2023; Prodanova & Varadzhakova, 2022), urban (Chondrogianni & Stephanedes, 2021; Lagarias et al., 2022) and transport (Garrido, 2013; Kellerman, 2023; Koktavá & Horák, 2023) geography/planning (González, 2017). Each article, a testament to the diversity and depth of knowledge within our community, has played a crucial role in energising discourse in our academic environment. Several EJG articles addressed current global crises and challenges such as climate change, COVID-19, wars and economic recession. They show how important geography is when it comes to finding solutions and new insights to the many problems that threaten our world. This interconnected approach underlines the journal's commitment to engaging with both the specialised academic discourse and the broader global challenges of our time. Authors, editors, board members, reviewers and readers are the lifeblood of this academic platform, and we recognise and appreciate your invaluable role in the success of the European Journal of Geography. Your commitment has fuelled our growth and you are an essential part of our legacy. We take our fifteenth anniversary as an opportunity to invite and encourage you to contribute to the continued success of the journal by submitting new and original geographical research articles. Here's to another year of scholarly work, meaningful collaborations and the continued advancement of geographical knowledge. We would also like to take a moment to recognise the incredible efforts of 95 professors and researchers who served as reviewers for the European Journal of Geography in 2023. Their expertise and dedication have been invaluable in maintaining the quality of our publications. In addition, the journal features 18 distinguished editorial board members from 12 countries, including renowned experts (60% men, 40% women) from various geographical research fields (This year we welcome 10 esteemed new members to our Editorial Board). In particular, we would like to express our sincere thanks to the following editorial board members for their help and support: Alvanides Seraphim, Northumbria University, UK ‪Bednarz W. Sarah, Texas A&M University, USA Capello Roberta, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Cretan Remus, West University of Timisoara, Romania De Miguel Gonzalez Rafael, University of Zaragoza, Spain Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola, University of Oulu, Finland Jerry T. Mitchell, University of South Carolina, USA Kavroudakis Dimitris, University of the Aegean, Greece Kiss Éva, CSFK Geographical Institute, Hungary Knecht Petr, Masaryk University, Czech Republic Kounadi Ourania, University of Vienna, Austria Kolvoord Bob, James Madison University, USA Leininger-Frezal Caroline, Université de Paris, France Margaritis Efstathios, University of Southampton, UK Specht Doug, University of Westminster, UK Strobl Josef, University of Salzburg, Austria Theobald Rebecca, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, USA Yilmaz Ari, Bandirma Onyedi Eylul University, Turkey In 2023, we received a total of 116 submissions. Of these, 24 outstanding papers were published online (acceptance rate 21% - 2023), while 92, although commendable, did not make it to publication. Remarkably, these submissions included the contributions of 63 authors from 20 countries. The average review speed of the articles is about 7-9 weeks for the first round and about 4-6 weeks for the second round. The reviewers came from 31 countries, which shows a global co-operation: UK, USA, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Netherlands, Japan, Hungary, Iceland, Croatia, Czech Republic,...

We are happy to announce a new European Journal of Geography (EJG) section titled ‘Geographic Insights in brief’. This initiative complements the new approach of EJG publishing (immediate publication of papers after the end of the review process) The short papers in this section will be published as part of each issue of the journal and will be reviewed only by the editorial team, in order to achieve fast dissemination of new and interesting ideas and applications. This section will accept two kinds of papers: First, papers announcing new ideas, breakthroughs and innovations in all Geographical areas that need to be immediately communicate to all geographers. The authors can later proceed to publish a fully developed traditional paper. Second, brief reports focusing on short, clear and pointed geographical research results and data. These shorter and more digestible items will help geographers to get a better understanding about specific spatial dimensions of environmental, social and economic phenomena and interactions that can feed an ongoing policy discussion with just a small amount of original visual analytics and geographical data. That is, present a smart and successive visualization or datasets, such as cartograms, mental maps, web-GIS platforms, real-time geographies and so on. This process provides new opportunities for intellectual communications and benefits for both researchers and practitioners to present new theoretical and empirical findings from new research and/or innovative geospatial applications. This new EJG section follows the trend in contemporary scholarship on geography to provide open access, inclusive and flexible platforms that express new, vibrant and exciting ideas. The requirements for the new series in EJG are: 1. Scope: European topics in human or physical geography, using cartography, GIS, remote sensing, quantitative or qualitative methods. 2. It includes one main idea or one research question, a reproducible method and one single map and up to two extra figures or/and tables. 3. It has an abstract of 100 words, three to six keywords and one or two research highlights. 4. It has a total word limit of around 1.000-2.000 words (including the main text, figures, tables and references). 5. Maps should comply with the usual cartographic and semiotic rules 6. Data and/or Code should be available on currently available repositories (e.g., Figshare, Mendeley data, Github, CRAN, Dataverse etc.) We welcome research contributions in the scientific fields of geography, planning, sociology, regional science, health, history, engineering, informatics, architecture. For any questions, please write to the editorial team (editor@eurogeojournal.eu) to discuss intended submissions.

Information regarding remittances flows across European space is scarce, and available only at the national level. Such a scarcity limits the capacity to undertake the required analyses and to derive the corresponding conclusions on the interrelations among European regions. The paper uncovers regional typologies in Europe in terms of interregional (NUTS 2 level) remittances flows in year 2018, the year prior to the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, the paper compiles and utilizes O-D matrices for interregional remittances flows in Europe, compiles and utilizes tailor-made clustering indicators and employs the k-means clustering technique.