Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ROBUST (ROBUST Crisis Governance in Turbulent Times – Mindset, Evidence, Strategies)
Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2023-09-30
The focus of European post-pandemic politics is currently on enhancing system capacities for ‘bouncing back’ from crisis to normalcy. These efforts draw on resilience research, which has become the dominant paradigm in crisis management. However, there are broad governance challenges that the resilience approach fails to consider. Centrally, how can European societies harness flexible adaptation and proactive innovation to deliver effective crisis responses in situations, where going back to the way things were is neither possible nor desirable? And how can democratic institutions uphold core values such as democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights in the face of crisis-induced turbulence? To address these challenges, the ROBUST project aims to set in motion a paradigm shift from ‘resilience’ (‘bouncing back’) to ‘robustness’ (‘building back better’) as the central principle of future crisis governance. The project breaks new ground by operationalizing the concept of robust crisis governance and investigating such responses empirically. We combine historical and comparative analysis at EU, national and local levels to gather a multi-dimensional data set out of which we identify the configurations of factors that drive (or block) robustness in crisis governance. The project studies responses by EU institutions and nine European countries to three recent crises (the financial, refugee and COVID-19 crises) to understand general patterns in system-level crises response, while we also conduct in-depth studies of localized COVID-19 responses ‘on the streets’ of 18 European localities to understand how EU, national and local crisis responses interact and are experienced by citizens. On this basis, the project delivers the elements of a new mindset along with policy recommendations for enabling the robust crisis governance of the future, all anchored in a learning hub that will serve as the social engine of the paradigm shift envisioned by the project.
Overall project objectives:
1. Create a conceptualization of robust crisis governance applicable across multiple levels and sectors
2. Investigate EU and national-level drivers and barriers for robust crisis governance
3. Study “networked localities” to understand the messy reality of multi-level crisis governance
4. Identify configurations of factors leading to robust governance responses
5. Build a learning hub to create a widely shared understanding of robust crisis governance
Work Packages:
WP1 - Management and Coordination (M1-M12)
WP2 - Defining robust crisis governance in turbulent times (M1-M12)
WP3 – Impacts of interactivity in multi-level governance (M7-M20)
WP4 – Impacts of hybridity in governance, democracy, and law (M7-M20)
WP5 – Impacts of negotiation in societal intelligence (M7-M20)
WP6 - Cases of crisis governance in networked localities (M12-M34)
WP7 – Configurational analysis (M26-M37)
WP8 – Learning Hub (M1-M42)
WP9 – Dissemination, exploitation, and communication (M1-M42)
WP10 – Ethics (M1-M42)
Overall project objectives:
1. Create a conceptualization of robust crisis governance applicable across multiple levels and sectors
2. Investigate EU and national-level drivers and barriers for robust crisis governance
3. Study “networked localities” to understand the messy reality of multi-level crisis governance
4. Identify configurations of factors leading to robust governance responses
5. Build a learning hub to create a widely shared understanding of robust crisis governance
Work Packages:
WP1 - Management and Coordination (M1-M12)
WP2 - Defining robust crisis governance in turbulent times (M1-M12)
WP3 – Impacts of interactivity in multi-level governance (M7-M20)
WP4 – Impacts of hybridity in governance, democracy, and law (M7-M20)
WP5 – Impacts of negotiation in societal intelligence (M7-M20)
WP6 - Cases of crisis governance in networked localities (M12-M34)
WP7 – Configurational analysis (M26-M37)
WP8 – Learning Hub (M1-M42)
WP9 – Dissemination, exploitation, and communication (M1-M42)
WP10 – Ethics (M1-M42)
The first round of scientific deliverables conducted in 2023 all contribute to the conceptualization of the four variables (one dependent and three independent) studied in the project – variables that contribute to robustness. In these deliverables we have conducted broad literature studies as well as independent conceptual work to provide a framework for the empirical studies in WP3, WP4, WP5 and WP6. The independent variables that we study are multi-level governance, hybridity and societal intelligence which amounts to a robustness concept that is distributed across multiple levels and sectors.
The first round of empirical studies of drivers and barriers is currently ongoing in WP3, WP4 and WP5. This data gathering will result in national reports that feed into the main outcomes of the work packages.
The ROBUST Learning Hub strategy has been initiated and sets out the current plans for building up the Learning Hub which include three pillars: semi-annual workshops, online community and online knowledge repository.
The first round of empirical studies of drivers and barriers is currently ongoing in WP3, WP4 and WP5. This data gathering will result in national reports that feed into the main outcomes of the work packages.
The ROBUST Learning Hub strategy has been initiated and sets out the current plans for building up the Learning Hub which include three pillars: semi-annual workshops, online community and online knowledge repository.