The researcher of Ituna, Mikel Erkoreka, together with Josu Hernando (Basque Museum of the History of Medicine)  have published an article entitled “Decentralisation: A handicap in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic? The response of the regional governments in Spain” in “Public Administration and Development” Journal, indexed within the Scopus and SJR academic quality rankings.

The article analyses how the Spanish asymmetrical system of decentralization has responded to the pandemic, focusing on the management developed by the sub-central governments (Autonomous Communities).

The research, which is both quantitative and qualitative, employs multidisciplinary tools and information sources, analyzing and linking fiscal and budgetary sources with the available statistics and information on health

Although the severe crisis caused by COVID-19 has highlighted appreciable shortcomings related to the decentralized model of territorial organization the research concludes that decentralization has not per se been a handicap when confronting the pandemic in Spain.

The full article is available here.