The NAS Institute of Regional Research was set up in October 1994 on the basis of the Lviv Branch of the NAS Institute of Economics, with the purpose of scientific back-up to developing the economic system of Ukraine, forming efficient regional policy and finding mechanisms of its implementation. The Institute has become the leading research institution in NAS system on regional policy and trans-border collaboration and functions as a methodological, research-management and coordinating center.
The principal current research areas of the Institute are:
- scientific principles for developing regional policy and territorial public systems;
- environmental-and-economic issues and prospects of the rational use of nature-resource potentials of Ukrainian regions, sustainable development of mountain territories;
- financial resources of the region and its innovative-and-investment provision;
- prospects of developing trans-border collaboration and improving the competitiveness of border territories.
Seven research departments function within the Institute, those of: regional socio-economic policy; regional environmental; prognostication and modelling of regional development; issues of market infrastructure and trans-border collaboration; issues of developing financial-credit relations in the region; monitoring of regional development; territorial public systems and spatial development.
Scientists of the Institute are the authors of fundamental academic publications on territorial management; environmental-and-economic adjustments of regional development; rational use of production, labour, nature-resource and intellectual potential of regions; formation of market infrastructure and development of enterprise; they also produced numerous applied works in the field of organizational-and-institutional development of the Western region of Ukraine, trans-border collaboration and regional statistics. Among them are strategies of socio-economic development of regions and districts of the Carpathians region, the Program of the development of health-resort sphere, tourism and recreation in Lviv oblast, the Program of protection and rational use of nature-resource potential of Volyn oblast etc.
The NAS Institute of Regional Research has established renowned academic schools concerned with regional studies, development of enterprise and industrial production in the regions, trans-border collaboration, environmental-and-economic development of public territorial systems, spatial development and territorial planning.
The Institute is also well-known as a center for training research personnel both in Ukraine and abroad. Post-graduate and post-doctoral studies, alongside with two specialized academic boards for awarding advanced degrees of doctor and candidate of economics, function here.