Project acronym CLIMASLOW
Project Slowing Down Climate Change: Combining Climate Law and Climate Science to Identify the Best Options to Reduce Emissions of Short-Lived Climate Forcers in Developing Countries
Researcher (PI) Kati Marjo Johanna Kulovesi
Host Institution (HI) ITA-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The ClimaSlow project opens new interdisciplinary horizons to identify the best opportunities to enhance the global legal and regulatory framework for reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCFs), with particular attention to developing countries as projected key sources of future SLCF emissions. It proceeds from the assumption that strengthening the global legal and regulatory framework for SLCFs would bring important benefits in terms of slowing down climate change and reducing local air pollution. However, legal and regulatory options to step up action on SLCFs have not been studied comprehensively. Furthermore, the climate impacts of the various options are not adequately understood.
In contrast to traditional legal analysis that would focus one legal system or instrument, the project will study the relevant legal and regulatory frameworks comprehensively, considering the international, regional, national and transnational levels. It will seek to identify various options, both formal legal instruments and informal regulatory initiatives, to strengthen the global legal and regulatory frameworks applicable to SLCFs. In addition to providing information on best options to regulate SLCFs, this novel, comprehensive approach will help scholars to improve their understanding of the implications of ongoing changes in global legal landscape, including its presumed fragmentation and deformalisation.
Addressing an important gap in current knowledge, the project will combine analysis of the merits of the various legal and regulatory options with estimates of their climate change impacts on the basis of climate modeling. This way, it will be able to identify the alternatives that are the most promising both from the legal point of view and in terms of climate change mitigation potential. The project will generate information that is policy-relevant and context-specific but can simultaneously provide broader lessons and open new interdisciplinary horizons.
Summary
The ClimaSlow project opens new interdisciplinary horizons to identify the best opportunities to enhance the global legal and regulatory framework for reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCFs), with particular attention to developing countries as projected key sources of future SLCF emissions. It proceeds from the assumption that strengthening the global legal and regulatory framework for SLCFs would bring important benefits in terms of slowing down climate change and reducing local air pollution. However, legal and regulatory options to step up action on SLCFs have not been studied comprehensively. Furthermore, the climate impacts of the various options are not adequately understood.
In contrast to traditional legal analysis that would focus one legal system or instrument, the project will study the relevant legal and regulatory frameworks comprehensively, considering the international, regional, national and transnational levels. It will seek to identify various options, both formal legal instruments and informal regulatory initiatives, to strengthen the global legal and regulatory frameworks applicable to SLCFs. In addition to providing information on best options to regulate SLCFs, this novel, comprehensive approach will help scholars to improve their understanding of the implications of ongoing changes in global legal landscape, including its presumed fragmentation and deformalisation.
Addressing an important gap in current knowledge, the project will combine analysis of the merits of the various legal and regulatory options with estimates of their climate change impacts on the basis of climate modeling. This way, it will be able to identify the alternatives that are the most promising both from the legal point of view and in terms of climate change mitigation potential. The project will generate information that is policy-relevant and context-specific but can simultaneously provide broader lessons and open new interdisciplinary horizons.
Max ERC Funding
1 456 179 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2021-12-31
Project acronym CLOCK
Project CLIMATE ADAPTATION TO SHIFTING STOCKS
Researcher (PI) Elena Ojea
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE VIGO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Management of marine fisheries is still far from incorporating adaptation to climate change, even though global stocks are heavily overexploited and climate change is adding additional pressure to the resource. In fact, there is growing evidence that current fisheries management systems may no longer be effective under climate change, and this will translate into both ecological and socioeconomic impacts. This research project argues that the combination of fisheries management science and socio-ecological systems thinking is necessary in order to advance in fisheries adaptation to climate change. To this end, the main objectives are set to: 1) Identify and understand the new challenges raised by climate change for current sustainable fisheries management; 2) Develop a novel approach to fisheries adaptation within a socio-ecological framework; 3) Provide empirical evidence on potential solutions for the adaptation of fisheries management systems; and 4) Help introduce fisheries adaptation at the top of the regional and international adaptation policy agendas. To do this, I will combine model and simulation approaches to fisheries with specific case studies where both biophysical and economic variables will be studied an modelled, but also individuals will be given the opportunity to participate in an active way, learning from participatory methods their preferences towards adaptation and the consequences of the new scenarios climate change poses. Three potential case studies are identified for property rights over stocks, property rights over space, and Marine Reserves in two European and one international case study areas. As a result, I expect to develop a new Adaptation Framework for fisheries management that can be scalable, transferable and easily operationalized, and a set of case study examples on how to integrate theory and participatory processes with the aim of increasing social, ecological and institutional resilience to climate change.
Summary
Management of marine fisheries is still far from incorporating adaptation to climate change, even though global stocks are heavily overexploited and climate change is adding additional pressure to the resource. In fact, there is growing evidence that current fisheries management systems may no longer be effective under climate change, and this will translate into both ecological and socioeconomic impacts. This research project argues that the combination of fisheries management science and socio-ecological systems thinking is necessary in order to advance in fisheries adaptation to climate change. To this end, the main objectives are set to: 1) Identify and understand the new challenges raised by climate change for current sustainable fisheries management; 2) Develop a novel approach to fisheries adaptation within a socio-ecological framework; 3) Provide empirical evidence on potential solutions for the adaptation of fisheries management systems; and 4) Help introduce fisheries adaptation at the top of the regional and international adaptation policy agendas. To do this, I will combine model and simulation approaches to fisheries with specific case studies where both biophysical and economic variables will be studied an modelled, but also individuals will be given the opportunity to participate in an active way, learning from participatory methods their preferences towards adaptation and the consequences of the new scenarios climate change poses. Three potential case studies are identified for property rights over stocks, property rights over space, and Marine Reserves in two European and one international case study areas. As a result, I expect to develop a new Adaptation Framework for fisheries management that can be scalable, transferable and easily operationalized, and a set of case study examples on how to integrate theory and participatory processes with the aim of increasing social, ecological and institutional resilience to climate change.
Max ERC Funding
1 184 931 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30
Project acronym CoCEAL
Project The Common Core of European Administrative Law
Researcher (PI) Giacinto DELLA CANANEA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA COMMERCIALE LUIGI BOCCONI
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary The European dimension of administrative law is the focus of a flurry of initiatives aiming to investigate similarities and differences, and to shape common legal scenarios. A codification of the administrative procedures of the EU has been envisaged by the European Parliament in its resolution of February 2013. A broader proposal of codification, including rule-making and contractual procedures, has been elaborated by ReNEUAL and has been discussed in a series of workshops in 2015.
The issues that arise are both practical and theoretical:
- it is important to understand whether the method traditionally followed by the European Court of Justice in order to identify the principles that are general and common to national legal systems, only applies when all those systems recognize such principles;
- whether national systems of public law share the same idea of what an administrative procedure is is another question;
whether the specific principles governing administrative procedures, such as the right to be heard and the duty to give reasons, are the same is still another question;
- finally, if any commonality exists, the question that arises is whether it is limited to the level of general principles of law or it includes the which govern procedures.
The research project is innovative on grounds of method, because:
- it aims at ascertaining whether, and the extent to that, the well-established methodology developed under the ‘Common Core of European Private Law’ project can be applied to EU administrative law;
- it permits to distinguish between ‘operative rules’, ‘descriptive formants’, and ‘meta-legal formants’;
- it also allows to understand whether the specific nature of the interests recognized and protected by the rules of public law require legal methodologies that are distinct and distant from those of private law.
Summary
The European dimension of administrative law is the focus of a flurry of initiatives aiming to investigate similarities and differences, and to shape common legal scenarios. A codification of the administrative procedures of the EU has been envisaged by the European Parliament in its resolution of February 2013. A broader proposal of codification, including rule-making and contractual procedures, has been elaborated by ReNEUAL and has been discussed in a series of workshops in 2015.
The issues that arise are both practical and theoretical:
- it is important to understand whether the method traditionally followed by the European Court of Justice in order to identify the principles that are general and common to national legal systems, only applies when all those systems recognize such principles;
- whether national systems of public law share the same idea of what an administrative procedure is is another question;
whether the specific principles governing administrative procedures, such as the right to be heard and the duty to give reasons, are the same is still another question;
- finally, if any commonality exists, the question that arises is whether it is limited to the level of general principles of law or it includes the which govern procedures.
The research project is innovative on grounds of method, because:
- it aims at ascertaining whether, and the extent to that, the well-established methodology developed under the ‘Common Core of European Private Law’ project can be applied to EU administrative law;
- it permits to distinguish between ‘operative rules’, ‘descriptive formants’, and ‘meta-legal formants’;
- it also allows to understand whether the specific nature of the interests recognized and protected by the rules of public law require legal methodologies that are distinct and distant from those of private law.
Max ERC Funding
1 254 105 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym COLOUR
Project THE COLOUR OF LABOUR: THE RACIALIZED LIVES OF MIGRANTS
Researcher (PI) Cristiana BASTOS
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTO DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary This project is about the racialization of migrant labourers across political boundaries, with a main focus on impoverished Europeans who served in huge numbers as indentured labourers in nineteenth-century Guianese, Caribbean and Hawaiian sugar plantations and in the workforce of late nineteenth and early twentieth century New England cotton mills.
With this project I aim to provide major, innovative contributions on three fronts:
(i) theory-making, by working the concepts of race, racism, racialization, embodiment and memory in association with migrant work across political boundaries and imperial classifications;
(ii) social relevance of basic research, by linking an issue of pressing urgency in contemporary Europe to substantive, broad-scope, and multi-sited anthropological/historical research on the wider structures of domination, rather than to targeted problem-solving research of immediate applicability;
(iii) disciplinary scope, by proposing to unsettle historical anthropology and ethnographic history from within the boundaries of a single empire, and to overcome the limitations of existing comparative studies, by inquiring into the flows and interactions between competing empires.
I will also:
(iv) strengthen the methodology for multi-sited, multi-period research in anthropology;
(v) contribute to an anthropology of global connections and trans-local approaches;
(vi) promote the multidisciplinary and combined-methods approach to complex subjects;
(vii) narrate a poorly known set of historical situations of labour racializations involving Europeans and document the ways they reverberate through generations; and
(viii) make the analysis available to both academic audiences and the different communities involved in the research.
Summary
This project is about the racialization of migrant labourers across political boundaries, with a main focus on impoverished Europeans who served in huge numbers as indentured labourers in nineteenth-century Guianese, Caribbean and Hawaiian sugar plantations and in the workforce of late nineteenth and early twentieth century New England cotton mills.
With this project I aim to provide major, innovative contributions on three fronts:
(i) theory-making, by working the concepts of race, racism, racialization, embodiment and memory in association with migrant work across political boundaries and imperial classifications;
(ii) social relevance of basic research, by linking an issue of pressing urgency in contemporary Europe to substantive, broad-scope, and multi-sited anthropological/historical research on the wider structures of domination, rather than to targeted problem-solving research of immediate applicability;
(iii) disciplinary scope, by proposing to unsettle historical anthropology and ethnographic history from within the boundaries of a single empire, and to overcome the limitations of existing comparative studies, by inquiring into the flows and interactions between competing empires.
I will also:
(iv) strengthen the methodology for multi-sited, multi-period research in anthropology;
(v) contribute to an anthropology of global connections and trans-local approaches;
(vi) promote the multidisciplinary and combined-methods approach to complex subjects;
(vii) narrate a poorly known set of historical situations of labour racializations involving Europeans and document the ways they reverberate through generations; and
(viii) make the analysis available to both academic audiences and the different communities involved in the research.
Max ERC Funding
2 161 397 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym ComparingCopperbelt
Project Comparing the Copperbelt: Political Culture and Knowledge Production in Central Africa
Researcher (PI) Miles Larmer
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary This project provides the first comparative historical analysis – local, national and transnational - of the Central African copperbelt. This globally strategic mineral region is central to the history of two nation-states (Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)), as well as wider debates about the role of mineral wealth in development. The project has three interrelated and comparative objectives. First, it will examine the copperbelt as a single region divided by a (post-)colonial border, across which flowed minerals, peoples, and ideas about the relationship between them. Political economy created the circumstances in which distinct political cultures of mining communities developed, but this also involved a process of imagination, drawing on ‘modern’ notions such as national development, but also morally framed ideas about the societies and land from which minerals are extracted. The project will explain the relationship between minerals and African polities, economies, societies and ideas. Second, it will analyse how ‘top-down’ knowledge production processes of Anglo-American and Belgian academies shaped understanding of these societies. Explaining how social scientists imagined and constructed copperbelt society will enable a new understanding of the relationship between mining societies and academic knowledge production. Third, it will explore the interaction between these intellectual constructions and the copperbelt’s political culture, exploring the interchange between academic and popular perceptions. This project will investigate the hypothesis that the resultant understanding of this region is the result of a long unequal interaction of definition and determination between western observers and African participants that has only a partial relationship to the reality of mineral extraction, filtered as it has been through successive sedimentations of imagining and representation laid down over nearly a century of urban life in central Africa.
Summary
This project provides the first comparative historical analysis – local, national and transnational - of the Central African copperbelt. This globally strategic mineral region is central to the history of two nation-states (Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)), as well as wider debates about the role of mineral wealth in development. The project has three interrelated and comparative objectives. First, it will examine the copperbelt as a single region divided by a (post-)colonial border, across which flowed minerals, peoples, and ideas about the relationship between them. Political economy created the circumstances in which distinct political cultures of mining communities developed, but this also involved a process of imagination, drawing on ‘modern’ notions such as national development, but also morally framed ideas about the societies and land from which minerals are extracted. The project will explain the relationship between minerals and African polities, economies, societies and ideas. Second, it will analyse how ‘top-down’ knowledge production processes of Anglo-American and Belgian academies shaped understanding of these societies. Explaining how social scientists imagined and constructed copperbelt society will enable a new understanding of the relationship between mining societies and academic knowledge production. Third, it will explore the interaction between these intellectual constructions and the copperbelt’s political culture, exploring the interchange between academic and popular perceptions. This project will investigate the hypothesis that the resultant understanding of this region is the result of a long unequal interaction of definition and determination between western observers and African participants that has only a partial relationship to the reality of mineral extraction, filtered as it has been through successive sedimentations of imagining and representation laid down over nearly a century of urban life in central Africa.
Max ERC Funding
1 599 661 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2020-06-30
Project acronym COMPASS
Project Control for Orbit Manoeuvring through Perturbations for Application to Space Systems
Researcher (PI) Camilla Colombo
Host Institution (HI) POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE8, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Space benefits mankind through the services it provides to Earth. Future space activities progress thanks to space transfer and are safeguarded by space situation awareness. Natural orbit perturbations are responsible for the trajectory divergence from the nominal two-body problem, increasing the requirements for orbit control; whereas, in space situation awareness, they influence the orbit evolution of space debris that could cause hazard to operational spacecraft and near Earth objects that may intersect the Earth. However, this project proposes to leverage the dynamics of natural orbit perturbations to significantly reduce current extreme high mission cost and create new opportunities for space exploration and exploitation.
The COMPASS project will bridge over the disciplines of orbital dynamics, dynamical systems theory, optimisation and space mission design by developing novel techniques for orbit manoeuvring by “surfing” through orbit perturbations. The use of semi-analytical techniques and tools of dynamical systems theory will lay the foundation for a new understanding of the dynamics of orbit perturbations. We will develop an optimiser that progressively explores the phase space and, though spacecraft parameters and propulsion manoeuvres, governs the effect of perturbations to reach the desired orbit. It is the ambition of COMPASS to radically change the current space mission design philosophy: from counteracting disturbances, to exploiting natural and artificial perturbations.
COMPASS will benefit from the extensive international network of the PI, including the ESA, NASA, JAXA, CNES, and the UK space agency. Indeed, the proposed idea of optimal navigation through orbit perturbations will address various major engineering challenges in space situation awareness, for application to space debris evolution and mitigation, missions to asteroids for their detection, exploration and deflection, and in space transfers, for perturbation-enhanced trajectory design.
Summary
Space benefits mankind through the services it provides to Earth. Future space activities progress thanks to space transfer and are safeguarded by space situation awareness. Natural orbit perturbations are responsible for the trajectory divergence from the nominal two-body problem, increasing the requirements for orbit control; whereas, in space situation awareness, they influence the orbit evolution of space debris that could cause hazard to operational spacecraft and near Earth objects that may intersect the Earth. However, this project proposes to leverage the dynamics of natural orbit perturbations to significantly reduce current extreme high mission cost and create new opportunities for space exploration and exploitation.
The COMPASS project will bridge over the disciplines of orbital dynamics, dynamical systems theory, optimisation and space mission design by developing novel techniques for orbit manoeuvring by “surfing” through orbit perturbations. The use of semi-analytical techniques and tools of dynamical systems theory will lay the foundation for a new understanding of the dynamics of orbit perturbations. We will develop an optimiser that progressively explores the phase space and, though spacecraft parameters and propulsion manoeuvres, governs the effect of perturbations to reach the desired orbit. It is the ambition of COMPASS to radically change the current space mission design philosophy: from counteracting disturbances, to exploiting natural and artificial perturbations.
COMPASS will benefit from the extensive international network of the PI, including the ESA, NASA, JAXA, CNES, and the UK space agency. Indeed, the proposed idea of optimal navigation through orbit perturbations will address various major engineering challenges in space situation awareness, for application to space debris evolution and mitigation, missions to asteroids for their detection, exploration and deflection, and in space transfers, for perturbation-enhanced trajectory design.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 021 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31
Project acronym COMPLEXITY
Project Understanding the Complexity of Modern Financial Systems
Researcher (PI) Vikrant Vig
Host Institution (HI) LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The modern financial system has undergone immense transformation in recent years and is far more complex than ever before. In lockstep, financial regulation has also become more complex. This research proposal attempts to improve our understanding of potential drivers of this complexity and the implications of this change on the allocation of resources.
Taking a positive rather than a normative approach, I will analyse post-crisis changes at both the micro- and at the macro-levels to create a broader understanding of complexities in the current financial system. In order to do so, I will employ a set of advanced research designs, as well as a uniquely assembled micro-level dataset covering state and privately owned financial institutions in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe.
This project will focus on two interconnected areas of research: 1) Organisation of Credit, 2) Financial regulation in a complex environment. The aim of this project is to create a sustainable framework for the study of post-crisis financial systems, and to shape the current debate on the future of post-crisis financial structures and the development of policy in this area. Not only will this research have a considerable impact on our understanding of financial systems, it will also impact fields beyond finance, like Organisational Economics, Industrial Organisation and Development Economics.
Summary
The modern financial system has undergone immense transformation in recent years and is far more complex than ever before. In lockstep, financial regulation has also become more complex. This research proposal attempts to improve our understanding of potential drivers of this complexity and the implications of this change on the allocation of resources.
Taking a positive rather than a normative approach, I will analyse post-crisis changes at both the micro- and at the macro-levels to create a broader understanding of complexities in the current financial system. In order to do so, I will employ a set of advanced research designs, as well as a uniquely assembled micro-level dataset covering state and privately owned financial institutions in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe.
This project will focus on two interconnected areas of research: 1) Organisation of Credit, 2) Financial regulation in a complex environment. The aim of this project is to create a sustainable framework for the study of post-crisis financial systems, and to shape the current debate on the future of post-crisis financial structures and the development of policy in this area. Not only will this research have a considerable impact on our understanding of financial systems, it will also impact fields beyond finance, like Organisational Economics, Industrial Organisation and Development Economics.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 947 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym ConFluReM
Project Controlling Fluid Resistances at Membranes
Researcher (PI) Matthias WESSLING
Host Institution (HI) DWI LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FUR INTERAKTIVE MATERIALIEN EV
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary Today’s materials research in the field of synthetic membranes gives access to highly permeable and extremely selective membranes. However, their potential will remain ineffective as high and selective transport rates always go along with resistances emerging at the membrane fluid interface in the form diffusion limitations in the laminary boundary layers. In order to make full use of the very many new materials, also new means to control and minimize such fluid based resistances need to be developed. Yet another phenomena disturbs the full potential use of membranes: retained solutes, colloids and biological matter accumulates at the membrane interface and causes irreversible fouling and scaling.
The proposed research aims to develop a rigorous translational methodology to control and improve mass transport through the fluid/membrane interface. ConFluReM will establish Strategic Tools and New Instruments to:
(1) comprehend and quantify the prevalent mass transport resistances in representative membrane separation processes,
(2) synthesize and fabricate new nano-, micro- and mesoscale material and device systems as instruments to control and overcome the limitations of concentration polarization and fouling,
Strategic Tools are experimental and simulation methods to quantify and engineer the mass transport and hydrodynamical properties of the new membrane systems. These encompass flow imaging (flowMRI, microPIV and microfluidic transport studies) as well as computational fluidic dynamics (CFD and CFDEM). New Instruments are synthetic and fabrication means as well as process condition means to improve mixing at the membrane/fluid interface. These encompass (a) lateral patterning of chemical topology of the membrane surface by printing and stamping, (b) shaping the 3D geometry of channels using additive manufacturing techniques and (c) imposing dynamical gradients to destablize fluid side resistances.
Summary
Today’s materials research in the field of synthetic membranes gives access to highly permeable and extremely selective membranes. However, their potential will remain ineffective as high and selective transport rates always go along with resistances emerging at the membrane fluid interface in the form diffusion limitations in the laminary boundary layers. In order to make full use of the very many new materials, also new means to control and minimize such fluid based resistances need to be developed. Yet another phenomena disturbs the full potential use of membranes: retained solutes, colloids and biological matter accumulates at the membrane interface and causes irreversible fouling and scaling.
The proposed research aims to develop a rigorous translational methodology to control and improve mass transport through the fluid/membrane interface. ConFluReM will establish Strategic Tools and New Instruments to:
(1) comprehend and quantify the prevalent mass transport resistances in representative membrane separation processes,
(2) synthesize and fabricate new nano-, micro- and mesoscale material and device systems as instruments to control and overcome the limitations of concentration polarization and fouling,
Strategic Tools are experimental and simulation methods to quantify and engineer the mass transport and hydrodynamical properties of the new membrane systems. These encompass flow imaging (flowMRI, microPIV and microfluidic transport studies) as well as computational fluidic dynamics (CFD and CFDEM). New Instruments are synthetic and fabrication means as well as process condition means to improve mixing at the membrane/fluid interface. These encompass (a) lateral patterning of chemical topology of the membrane surface by printing and stamping, (b) shaping the 3D geometry of channels using additive manufacturing techniques and (c) imposing dynamical gradients to destablize fluid side resistances.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym ConFooBio
Project Resolving conflicts between food security and biodiversity conservation under uncertainty
Researcher (PI) Nils Bunnefeld
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Resolving conflicts between food security and biodiversity conservation under uncertainty
Conflicts between food security and biodiversity conservation are increasing in scale and intensity and have been shown to be damaging for both biodiversity and human livelihoods. Uncertainty, for example from climate change, decreases food security, puts further pressure on biodiversity and exacerbates conflicts.
I propose to develop a novel model that predicts solutions to conflicts between biodiversity conservation and food security under uncertainty. ConFooBio will integrate game theory and social-ecological modelling to develop new theory to resolve conservation conflicts. ConFooBio will implement a three-tiered approach 1) characterise and analyse 7 real-world conservation conflicts impacted by uncertainty; 2) develop new game theory that explicitly incorporates uncertainty; and 3) produce and test a flexible social-ecological model, applicable to any real-world conflict where stakeholders operate under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
The project has importance for society at large because ecosystems and their services are central to human wellbeing. Managing a specific natural resource often results in conflict between those stakeholders focussing on improving food security and those focussed on biodiversity conversation. ConFooBio will illuminate resolutions to such conflicts by showing how to achieve win-win scenarios that protect biodiversity and secure livelihoods. In this project, I will develop a practical, transparent and flexible model for the sustainable future of natural resources that is also robust to uncertainty (e.g., climate change); this model will be highly relevant for environmental negotiations among stakeholders with competing objectives, e.g., the negotiations to set the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in September 2015.
Summary
Resolving conflicts between food security and biodiversity conservation under uncertainty
Conflicts between food security and biodiversity conservation are increasing in scale and intensity and have been shown to be damaging for both biodiversity and human livelihoods. Uncertainty, for example from climate change, decreases food security, puts further pressure on biodiversity and exacerbates conflicts.
I propose to develop a novel model that predicts solutions to conflicts between biodiversity conservation and food security under uncertainty. ConFooBio will integrate game theory and social-ecological modelling to develop new theory to resolve conservation conflicts. ConFooBio will implement a three-tiered approach 1) characterise and analyse 7 real-world conservation conflicts impacted by uncertainty; 2) develop new game theory that explicitly incorporates uncertainty; and 3) produce and test a flexible social-ecological model, applicable to any real-world conflict where stakeholders operate under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
The project has importance for society at large because ecosystems and their services are central to human wellbeing. Managing a specific natural resource often results in conflict between those stakeholders focussing on improving food security and those focussed on biodiversity conversation. ConFooBio will illuminate resolutions to such conflicts by showing how to achieve win-win scenarios that protect biodiversity and secure livelihoods. In this project, I will develop a practical, transparent and flexible model for the sustainable future of natural resources that is also robust to uncertainty (e.g., climate change); this model will be highly relevant for environmental negotiations among stakeholders with competing objectives, e.g., the negotiations to set the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in September 2015.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 151 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym CONPOL
Project Contexts, networks and participation: The social logic of political engagement
Researcher (PI) Sven Aron Oskarsson
Host Institution (HI) UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary The statement that individuals’ immediate social circumstances influence how they think and act in the political sphere is a truism. However, both theoretical and empirical considerations have often prevented political scientists from incorporating this logic into analyses of political behavior. In the CONPOL project we argue that it is necessary to return to the idea that politics follows a social logic in order to push the theoretical and empirical boundaries in explaining political behavior. That is, people do not act as isolated individuals when confronting complex political tasks such as deciding whether to vote and which party or candidate to vote for. Instead politics should be seen as a social experience in which individuals arrive at their decisions within particular social settings: the family, the peer group, the workplace, the neighborhood. In what way do parents and other family members influence an individual’s political choices? What is the role of workmates and neighbors when individuals arrive at political decisions? Do friends and friends’ friends affect how you think and act in the political sphere? To answer such questions the standard approach to gather empirical evidence on political behavior based on national sample surveys needs to be complemented by the use of population wide register data. The empirical core of the CONPOL project is unique Swedish register data. Via the population registers provided by Statistics Sweden it is possible to identify several relevant social settings such as parent-child relations and the location of individuals within workplaces and neighborhoods. The registers also allow us to identify certain network links between individuals. Furthermore, Statistics Sweden holds information on several variables measuring important political traits. A major aim for CONPOL is to complement this information by scanning in and digitalizing election rolls with individual-level information on turnout across several elections.
Summary
The statement that individuals’ immediate social circumstances influence how they think and act in the political sphere is a truism. However, both theoretical and empirical considerations have often prevented political scientists from incorporating this logic into analyses of political behavior. In the CONPOL project we argue that it is necessary to return to the idea that politics follows a social logic in order to push the theoretical and empirical boundaries in explaining political behavior. That is, people do not act as isolated individuals when confronting complex political tasks such as deciding whether to vote and which party or candidate to vote for. Instead politics should be seen as a social experience in which individuals arrive at their decisions within particular social settings: the family, the peer group, the workplace, the neighborhood. In what way do parents and other family members influence an individual’s political choices? What is the role of workmates and neighbors when individuals arrive at political decisions? Do friends and friends’ friends affect how you think and act in the political sphere? To answer such questions the standard approach to gather empirical evidence on political behavior based on national sample surveys needs to be complemented by the use of population wide register data. The empirical core of the CONPOL project is unique Swedish register data. Via the population registers provided by Statistics Sweden it is possible to identify several relevant social settings such as parent-child relations and the location of individuals within workplaces and neighborhoods. The registers also allow us to identify certain network links between individuals. Furthermore, Statistics Sweden holds information on several variables measuring important political traits. A major aim for CONPOL is to complement this information by scanning in and digitalizing election rolls with individual-level information on turnout across several elections.
Max ERC Funding
1 621 940 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
