Regionální rosvoj a inspirace z jiných disciplin : možnosti aplikace konceptů evoluční biologie na vybraná témata regionálního rozvoje

Application of the evolutionary biology concepts to socio-economic reality issues is not any new theme, even if this inspiration in socio-economic geography and especially in regional development is more recent and is based, in general, on already realized applications, mainly in economics. The main objective of the PhD thesis is thus an identification of hitherto non-applied evolutionary concepts, or to this time neglected biological aspects of already applied concepts and an attempt of their application to the selected themes of regional development without the intermediary role of other disciplines. In the first place, the attention is paid to the search of an appropriate theoretical approach and of the summary of already applied evolutionary concepts to the social sciences. Second part presents some evolutionary biology concepts where a potential for applications (based on the mediator role of analogies and metaphors) to the selected regional development issues was identified. Individual applied concepts were divided into four more complex thematic units – adaptation, co-evolution, selection and speciation. The application of the last concept could probably be considered as the most valuable contribution of the PhD thesis. It is based on the hypothesis that some analogical traits can be identified among socio-economic concepts of path dependence and lock-in and biological concepts linked with speciation and that the biological concepts can provide the general inspiration for identification of certain types of socio-economic barriers of development of regions and for an attempt to classify them.