Rosa Mecha López is teacher and researcher at the Department of Geography of the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). She leads the research group "Economic Geography and Territorial Development" and specializes in Local Productive Systems, Industrial and Agroindustrial Districts and Rural Development. She has been visiting researcher the Universities of Toulouse-Le Miral (France), Utrecht (Holland) and Durham (England), as well as at the Higher Council for Scientific Research of Spain, within the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography. She has also led the Scientific Culture, Innovation and Dissemination of Science Unit of the Complutense University of Madrid for 15 years and has been the coordinator of the Support Area for the Creation and Monitoring of university Spin-off companies. In recent years, her research has been focused on sustainable development policies and smart territories, especially Smart Villages and sustainable logistics. She works above all with qualitative research techniques and territorial diagnosis methodologies for the design of smart and sustainable development projects. She is currently part of the board of directors of the Economic Geography Group of the Spanish Association of Geography and of the Teaching Commission of the Degree in Geography and Territorial Planning of the Complutense University of Madrid.
Carlos López-Escolano is a teacher and researcher at the Department of Geography and Territorial Planning of the University of Zaragoza (Spain), where he is part of the Study Group for Spatial Planning (GEOT) and the Institute of Environmental Sciences (IUCA). He has been a visiting researcher at the Université de Toulouse-Jean Jaurès (France), Université de Pau et des Pays de l´Adour (France), and Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara (Romania). Over the last few years, he has worked on land use planning issues at different scales and their spatial dynamics, especially on transport infrastructures, urban mobility, and accessibility to facilities and services. He is currently the coordinator of the Master's in Territorial and Environmental Planning at the University of Zaragoza.
Ana Vera Martín is teacher and researcher at the Department of Geography of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain). She has been visiting researcher at the University of Portsmouth (UK) and University of Boston (United States). Her current research is related to the following topics: the development of commercial activity in inner urban areas based on pedestrian, open urban spaces and retail activity; local development and the strategic distributions of activities in the territory; and economic spaces related with the quality of life and the biodiversity. Methodologically, she works with both quantitative (spatial statistics and multivariate analysis) and qualitative methods.