The Centre for Regional Studies and Local Development is a non-governmental and non-for-profit organisation that works as a think tank, research and training institute with various researchers, public officers and experts in regional studies and local development.

The centre’s goal is to promote inclusion of global and regional perspectives in local development plans leading to sustainable development.

The Centre for Regional Studies and Local Development is a member of EduCARE India.

Regional studies focus on a particular region’s society, arts, politics, economics, and its interactions with the adjoining regions and global society. Regional / Area Studies are multidis­ciplinary fields of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description for what are, in the practice of scholarship, many heterogeneous fields of research, encompassing both the social sciences and the humanities.

The envis­aged research programmes encompass ecological and environmental studies; regional historical processes; regional social structure; regional economics and development studies. In view of the multidisciplinary nature of research, the Centre promotes studies in the fields of geography, cultural anthropology, soci­ology, economics, political science, and socio‑eco­nomic history of regions. Other typical area study involve international relations, strategic studies, history, cultural studies, languages, literature, and other related disciplines. It also often include diaspora and emigration from the area.

Regional / Area studies encompass a much broader and deeper intellectual agenda than the one seen by government agencies or political and culturally charged minds.

Regional development is the provision of aid and other assistance to regions which are less economically developed. Regional development may be domestic or international in nature. The implications and scope of regional development may therefore vary in accordance with the definition of a region, and how the region and its boundaries are perceived internally and externally.

Local development means the identification and use of the resources and endogenous potentialities of a community, neighbourhood, city, municipality or equivalent. Economic and non economic factors influence local development processes. Among the non economic factors, social, cultural, historical, institutional, and geographical aspects can be decisive in the process of local economic development.

Journal of Regional Studies and Local Development covers the development of theories and concepts, empirical analysis and policy debate in the field of regional studies and local development. The journal publishes original research and field work reports spanning the economic, social, political and environmental dimensions of urban and rural / regional and local change. The distinctive purpose of Regional Studies is to connect insights across intellectual disciplines in a systematic and grounded way to understand how and why regions and cities evolve. The published research that distils how economic and political processes and outcomes are contingent upon regional and local circumstances. The journal is a pluralist forum, which showcases diverse perspectives and analytical techniques. Essential criteria for papers to be accepted for the journal are that they make a substantive contribution to scholarly debates, are regional in focus, conceptually well-informed, empirically grounded and methodologically sound. Submissions are also expected to engage with wider debates that advance the field of regional studies and are of interest to readers of the journal.