Introduction to the Special Issue on countries' contribution to regional science.

Keywords: Regional Science; national countries' contributions EN Regional Science national countries' contributions 269 273 5 04/08/20 20200401 NES 200401 REASONS FOR THE SPECIAL ISSUE This special issue represents, to my knowledge, a unique attempt in highlighting specificities of national contributions to regional science. Today, in spite of the ongoing wide internationalization of scientific information, and of the restless activity of the supra-national Regional Science Associations and of the Regional Science Association International, the national scientific production and debates are still better known by scholars living in the respective countries. An additional reason for the importance of such exercise lies in the fact that the most frequently chosen themes in the literature of a country often derive from relevant geographical and historical specificities of the country itself. In many cases the scientific interpretations and policy recipes can prove relevant for other countries, which face similar problems. [Extracted from the article]