Welcome

Dear colleagues:

Almost twenty years ago, a group of researchers from several Spanish universities dared to launch an initiative that they had been pursuing for some time but had not been able to materialize until that date: the celebration of conferences revolved around input-output analysis, and that was aimed especially at the Spanish-speaking community. This idea was put into practice in September 2005, when the University of Oviedo hosted the First Hispanic-American Conference on Input-Output Analysis. For our standards today, it was a relatively minor event, with around thirty works presented over one day and a half. It was also a conference that set the foundations for some routines that have been consolidated over time, such as the holding of sessions in Spanish and English and the special attention paid to young researchers. The 2005 Conference, in fact, included the presence of Emilio Fontela as a keynote speaker in one of his last participations in conferences, and to whom we pay tribute at each conference since 2009 with the award named after him.

But what is really important about that event is that it managed to consolidate and continue over time, as a result of the efforts of several colleagues at other universities. The second edition was hosted in Zaragoza (2007), when we took the first steps to create the Hispano-American Society of Input-Output (SHAIO), which was formally launched in 2008. Then, the subsequent editions organized already by SHAIO together with the local committees in Albacete (2009), Madrid (2011), Seville (2013), Barcelona (2015), Mérida-Yucatán (2017), Santiago de Compostela (2019) and Aveiro (2022) have gradually contributed to consolidating the event in the academic calendar of the input-output community.

We are already celebrating the 10th Hispanic-American Conference on Input-Output Analysis and it is a good time to return to the origins. It is a great pleasure for the University of Oviedo and REGIOlab (Regional Economic Analysis Laboratory) to welcome SHAIO colleagues and friends again. The enthusiasm of the organizing and scientific committee will be the same or greater than in that first adventure that began in 2005, but many things will be different. Since then, the conference has grown enormously in terms of participation, it has been held in three countries and two different continents, and it has extended its duration to include the celebration of the Spanish Input-Output School. They have also managed to integrate academic users of input-output data together with their producers into the same event, with increasing participation from statistical institutes. The conference will be a reflection of all this growth, but it will do it in a different location, since it will be held at the School of Commerce and Tourism of the University of Oviedo, located on the Gijon campus. Gijon is the most populated city in Asturias and offers a wide range of hotels and a vibrant social and cultural life, especially during the summer season. The School of Commerce and Tourism is within Laboral-Ciudad de la Cultura and offers an excellent setting to host the conference.

As in previous editions, the official languages ​​of the conference will be English and Spanish, and abstracts, papers, and organized sessions can be submitted in either of these two languages. The program will include the fifth edition of the Spanish School of Input-Output Analysis (ESAIO), plenary and parallel sessions, the delivery of the Emilio Fontela Award, and some other events of which you will be informed.

For us, there is a feeling of responsibility to organize this again almost twenty years after our first attempt. But there are even stronger feelings: of gratitude to SHAIO for bringing the celebration of this event to our home again; and of joy for being able to have here so many colleagues and friends that we met along the way. We hope to see you all in September in Gijon.

Sincerely,

The presidents of the local and scientific committees

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