The 2026 edition of the International Symposium “Networks, Markets & People” (#NMP2026) aims to promote the scientific debate about the effects that the contemporary ecological, technological, social and economic global challenges produce on settlement systems, especially in Inner Areas and metropolitan cities of the less developed territories.

Contemporary settlements express the distance between the built-up environment inertia and the “liquid” society flowing underneath. Blurred lines substituted the neat dualities such as culture-nature, urban-rural, central-marginal, affluent-deprived, enacting perpetual changes between polarities.

Mobility (of people, goods, information, capital) can be considered the most characteristic feature of the “liquid” society: just think of production settlements, for example, which in a few decades have moved from the push towards delocalization to the opposite one of reshoring, or the growing tourist flows or, again, digital hyperconnections.

The new frontier of adaptive and flexible production, supported by the ongoing digital revolution, encourages a rethinking of the concepts of proximity and interdependence within human settlements, with a paradigm shift also in the center-periphery dualism.

The increase of population in some geographical areas of the planet raises new issues related to the availability of sufficient resources to satisfy everyone’s needs, starting with food, and the ecological footprint of human activity. In other areas, such as Europe, the progressive ageing of population poses unprecedented problems in relation to the availability of human resources necessary for production activities and the management of the territory, as well as in relation to the maintenance of welfare systems.

In many cities, especially metropolitan cities, access to housing remains a challenge due to limited supply and population growth. In some contexts, the rapid proliferation of tourist accommodations, which further reduces housing availability, creates severe market tensions, resulting in rising prices. Furthermore, much of the existing housing stock was built between 1950 and 1980 and is characterized by low-quality construction, poor energy performance, and a lack of basic services.

The challenges that come with climate change and other environmental issues reinforced the understanding that humans are entangled with their environment: a post-humanist epistemology requires that humans are dependent on the environment, and part of a larger evolving ecosystem; consequently, the approach to social reproduction has changed, focusing itself mainly towards spatial justice, reuse, regeneration and environmental care.

The theme of ecological transition requires multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary points of view, touching on very different issues, such as infrastructures and mobility systems, green buildings and energy communities, ecosystem services and land consumption, with constant attention to the limits imposed by the planet’s carrying capacity.

Digital technologies and artificial intelligence bring extraordinary potential to institutions, companies and social organizations, but also carry the risk of the negative impacts of unmanaged innovation. Artificial Intelligence, that challenges the labor market, has been seen lately as both a form of exploitation and destruction of the human being as known until now. The progressive replacement of the human workforce with machines doesn’t concern only the traditional industries anymore, but it affects also the intellectual and creative productions.

The side effects of this transition need to be studied in order to share benefits and tradeoffs equitably on the one hand between technology and service developers, and on the other individuals and communities. Accessibility rights to services and goods, social inclusion, equal opportunities, commoning and sharing economies, as well as informalities and self-organization permeate the incoming social organization associated with the digital transition, towards inclusive concepts of citizenship.

Social innovation practices, collaborative governance models, open innovation frontiers, human and non-human entanglements, all concur to chart the route for the next generation settlements, notably: the built-up environment, the social system and the complexity and challenges of everyday life.

These phenomena are even more significant for marginalized areas, which are compelled to face the risk of widening the socio-economic gap with advanced regions, as happens e.g. in less developed territories of South and East Europe countries and, more generally, of the Mediterranean bordering countries.

The National Strategic Plan for Inner Areas, that was recently adopted by the Italian government, for example, considers for the first time the decline of some areas to be unstoppable, for which it provides for an “Accompaniment in a path of irreversible depopulation” (Objective 4).

The involvement of local communities and the development of Cultural and Creative Industries, however, can help to restrain the devitalization of these territories: in fact, by exploring the relationships between artistic expressions, cultural heritage, social inclusion and well-being, they can stimulate innovations that promote inclusive and sustainable growth and a human-centered approach to the digital transition.

Green and digital transition and a more resilient, competitive, inclusive and democratic society are the three pillars on which European policies are based for the period 2021–27.

We need to regulate and manage the transitions to ensure they are not destroyed, in particular due to potential tradeoffs between a digital-tech-competitive and an ecological sustainable, inclusive and democratic society.

For this reason, the substantial investments planned by the EU to support these policies in the coming years require multidimensional evaluation systems, capable of supporting decision-makers in selecting feasible interventions and most effective in pursuing the objectives, also considering that the financial resources used for the policy implementation are borrowed from future generations, who will be held accountable for our work.

We must face these global challenges while the global geopolitical order is changing and local conflicts are increasingly widespread, with growing risks of escalation on a larger scale and ever more likely catastrophic consequences: this Call for Papers also wants to be a signal that the scientific community does not surrender to pessimism and continues in its commitment to society, and above all, to future generations.