Objective
The research project will produce new knowledge about democratically legitimate, scientifically robust governance multi-level governance for sustainable development. Ecological Economics (ecological political economy) is the main discipline and the methodology is hypothesis testing of the hypothesis: there are political powers operating in governance for sustainable development that are not legitimated through existing structures and which are directly related to correlations between (a) actor knowledge resources and practices, (b) the content and character of the debates and discourses and (c) the knowledge resources and characteristics of the relevant governance institutions. The two main scientific aims of the research are: (1) reveal and evaluate, these correlations through empirical research in order to explain how sustainable development policies are governed and (2) use the empirical results to develop recommendations for new EU multi-level governance that could help Europe achieve desired sustainable development outcomes, taking into account the Draft Constitutional Treaty. The Umweltforschungszentrum is a unique state-of-the-art organisation, focused exclusively on environment research, with a strong applied research practice and an emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Because I have focused on developing the theoretical aspect of my work during my PhD, the unique set of resources at the UFZ will help me achieve a position of professional maturity by building my skills for co-ordinating and directing comprehensive interdisciplinary research that engages with practical applications of theoretical concepts and theoretical implications of empirical research. The combination of interdisciplinarity, environment research and applied focuses at the UFZ make it by far the most appropriate European organisation for me to work with at this point in my career, in order to advance to a position of professional maturity and independence as leading European researcher.
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Call for proposal
FP6-2004-MOBILITY-5
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