IntroductionThe 2015 Regional Studies Association (RSA) Conference took place in Piacenza (Italy) from 25-27 April, under the theme 'Global Growth Agendas: Regions, Institutions and Sustainability'. The conference was hosted by the 'Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore' gathering both academics and policymakers. In an intense 3-day programme, with plenary sessions focused on three main topics: well-being and quality of life, technological and social innovation, and food, agriculture and regional development. These topics were chosen in the framework of the 2015 EXPO organised in Milano to address the challenge of 'Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life'. Piacenza provided a concrete example to combine quality of life and economic development in a medium sized city with about 100,000 inhabitants. In order to introduce the conference, the RSA in cooperation with Taylor and Francis prepared a review of recent articles from Italian scholars.1 This conference confirmed the growing activities of the RSA, announcing the first Chinese conference (November 2015) and a new division for Latin America as well as new funding schemes.Conference organisation and main contributionsThe RSA conference is an excellent opportunity to gather scholars and policymakers discussing regional issues in a very friendly environment, enabling scientific discussions and exchange of ideas. Despite a growing number of participants, the RSA conference remains a place where contacts are easy and cross-disciplinary fertilisations possible. The 2015 RSA conference focused on the twenty themes presented in Table 1. Within a very rich program, this report focuses primarily on plenary sessions where prominent scholars and experts addressed three main topics.2Well-being and quality of lifeIn the first plenary session, Philip S. Morrison (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand), Filomena Maggino (Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy) and John Helliwell (Vancouver School of Economics, Canada) discussed different dimensions of well-being and quality of life from an urban perspective, focusing on difficulties in providing indicators.In the first presentation, Morrison started from the observation that well-being varies across cities and countries. The first remark is that in the developed world well-being seems to be associated with smaller urban size; whereas, in the developing world, this relationship is reversed. This introduces a paradox because, in the developed world, large urban areas are the engine of growth, but with lower well-being. Second, the distribution of well-being within urban areas varies significantly. Using a microeconomic approach, Morrison argued that well-being varies depending on absolute and relative income, as well as age, gender and other dimensions that need to be explored by future research.Maggino presented a project entitled 'Benessere, Equo, Sostenibile' (BES),3 led by ISTAT, the Italian statistical institute. This project aims to select and collect a broad array of indicators on 'well-being, equity, and sustainability' (corresponding to the Italian acronym 'BES') through a participative process, which involves universities, institutional stakeholders and experts. The major challenge is how to operationalise concepts like individual quality of life, social and community development as well as risks and resilience for sustainability. An interesting side project is the development of indicators for Italian metropolitan systems.In the third contribution, Helliwell started his presentation asking the audience to sing. By this very entertaining introduction, he showed the influence of emotions on the perception of life, as determined by the funny and unusual situation. He highlighted another paradox: certain disasters, such as an earthquake, can push people to cooperate and develop generosity, helping them to recover from the disaster and significantly improving their perceptions and well-being. …