The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Institute for Regional Research (Institut for Regionalforschung) was celebrated by an international conference on "Regional Growth and Regional Policy within the Framework of European Integration". We are happy to be able to present the outcome of that conference in this volume. Its authors reflect the Institute's international character. Their contributions char- acterize main fields of interest of the Institute's research staff. The Institute for Regional Research is an establishment of the Economic and So- cial Science Faculty (Wirtschafts-und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultiit) at Chris- tian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, one of the faculty's four institutes of economics. It began as an initiative of Reimut 10chimsen. He wanted to upgrade regional re- search and planning at the university because at the faculty level this field was only a minor province. As further justification for the foundation of an institute, 10chimsen referred to the growing international and national significance of re- gional research and especially of regional structural policy. The need for an auto- nomous institute in the north of Germany was emphasized above all, particularly since regional science in the Federal Republic of Germany in the late sixties was largely limited to the universities in Freiburg, Karlsruhe and MOnster.