Content:

1. News from ESEE and its members

  • ESEE 2011 Pre-Conference Workshop for Young Scholars
  • Association for Ecological Economics in Spain launched December 2010

2. Other news

  • PhD Programme in Science and Management of Climate Change - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS A.Y. 2011-2012
  • Call for Papers from Low Carbon Economy

3. Hot topic

  • The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

4. Events

  • EAERE 18th Annual Conference
  • oikos Young Scholars Entrepreneurship Academy 2011 (Call for Papers)
  • International Conference "Territory and Environment: from representations to action"
  • 2nd CES "Critical Economics" Summer School: Environmental Values and Public Policies
  • Summer School on Participatory Methods in Social Sciences for the analysis of Water, Land use and Climate Change
  • Planet Under Pressure: New knowledge towards solutions

5. Job openings

  • Expert in "Ecological Economics of Water Ecosystem services"
  • Robert Bosch Junior Professorship Research
  • Researcher Position for Research Programme on Sustainable Development
  • Junior and Senior Researcher Position in Climate and Energy Economics
  • ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Centre Funded PhD Studentships

6. Publications

  • Elements of Ecological Economics

1. News from ESEE and its members:

ESEE 2011 Pre-Conference Workshop for Young Scholars

We invite graduate students and young researchers to participate and contribute to the pre-conference workshop organized in Istanbul at Boğaziçi University (to be held 12-14 June 2011 before the 9th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (www.esee2011.org)). Following the past years' student meetings, we aim to provide a venue for graduate students and young researchers to share ideas, establish potential collaborations and create networks within ecological economics.

For more details please click here.

On the 3rd day of the workshop a day-course on degrowth will be organized by Research & Degrowth. Free accommodation, breakfast and lunch will be provided to 25 selected workshop participants, although participation is open to everyone who can arrange their trip and accommodation. Deadline for applications is March 25, 2011.

The program of the degrowth course can be downloaded here.

Association for Ecological Economics in Spain launched December 2010

During the last four years, a growing community of scholars, practitioners and activists have been holding annual meetings to coordinate and promote sustainability research, policy and action from the approaches of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology in Spain. Since December 2010, this association has been formalized and acquired legal status as the 'Asociación de Economía Ecológica en España (EcoEcoEs)' (Association for Ecological Economics in Spain'.

The overall objective of EcoEcoEs is expanding the scope of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology within the Spanish State, strengthening the links between scholars, decision makers, and members of the civil society. The association will be led by an executive committee to be decided by ballot in summer 2010. In the meantime, and following decisions taken in the foundational meeting in Madrid in December 2010, a provisory board has been conformed with the following members: Esther Velázquez (President), Oscar Carpintero (vice-president); Xoán Doldán (secretary); Maria Jesús Beltrán, Erik Gómez-Baggethun, and Pedro Lomas (vocals).

The constitution of EcoEcoEs is an important step towards the strengthening of Ecological Economics in Spain and beyond, and EcoEcoEs looks forward to have a close collaboration with ESEE and ISEE in the coming years. Further information on EcoEcoEs can be found at www.ecoecoes.es.

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2. Other news:

PhD Programme in Science and Management of Climate Change - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS A.Y. 2011-2012

The PhD Programme in Science and Management of Climate Change is jointly organized by the Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC), an integrated, multi-disciplinary frontier research centre for understanding, controlling and adapting to Climate Change.

The main objectives of this PhD Programme are to provide the job market with experts with a broad, in-depth, scientific and socio-economic background, as well as with a sound and innovative research experience focusing on the dynamics of climate change, the design and execution of numerical and mathematical models of the climate and the economy, the methodologies and techniques for evaluation, management and assessment, in terms of mitigation and adaptation measures and policies.

The Programme is organised in two Streams:

  • Dynamic climatology, at CMCC in Bologna
  • Climate change impact and management, at the Department of Economics of the University Ca’ Foscari in Venice

The programme, taught in English, lasts for three years. Twelve courses are planned for the first academic year (available at the programme website venus.unive.it/phd-climate-change), in order to provide students with the state of the art of the scientific findings related to the two disciplinary streams. These also foresee common activities with the objective of offering tools to build a sound scientific, managerial and economic base for the general comprehension of the broader theme of climate change, with the opportunity for in depth studies of specific issues and for experiencing a multidisciplinary approach.

The second year is aimed at providing the PhD candidates with an experience of research in a foreign institution, while the third year is mainly devoted to the preparation of the thesis which will be externally reviewed by international referees.

The Call for Applications for the academic year 2011/2012 will be opened on the 31st of January and closed on the 22nd of March 2011.

The Call for Application (PDF File), general information, and forms for the PhD Programme on Science and Management of Climate Change can be downloaded here after the opening of the call. If you would like to receive an alert when the call opens, please write to phd-climate-change@unive.it in order to be added in our mailing list.

Call for Papers from Low Carbon Economy

The Low Carbon Economy (LCE) is published by Scientific Research Publishing (SRP), USA. The Journal dedicates to the latest advancement of low carbon economy and the goal is to keep a record of the state-of-the-art research and promote the research work in these fast moving areas.

Peer Review:
All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed by the international editorial board members to ensure the quality and fairness.

Open Access:
All SRP journals are Open Access; all readers can freely get full text on SRP's website. It can raise visibility and help undeveloped areas to gain scholarly resources without any barriers.

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3. Hot topic:

The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
by Reinhard Mechler (Vienna University of Economics and Business and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) )

As the tragedy generated by the TŌHOKU earthquake and tsunami is still unfolding and the thoughts of people across the world watching in horror and disbelief are with the affected and mourning, it is difficult to comment on what can be learned from this terrible event. Nevertheless, disasters, traditionally perceived as “Acts of God”, over the last few decades have become better “managed” with a discourse shifting from a consideration of the underlying natural threats to a concern for the vulnerability of people, assets and the environment. A lot has in fact been learned and achieved. Japan, after the brutal wakeup call sounded by the Kobe earthquake in 1995, probably has become the best disaster prepared country in the world. The fact that little structural damage was recorded around the affected region extending up to Tokyo with its high rise buildings is telling. Also, the tsunami warning system seemingly worked. Yet, there are limits to coping for such a massive event beyond Japanese collective memory. At a magnitude of 9.0 the 5th largest event ever recorded, the energy released by the disaster was a 1,000 times larger than for the earthquake that devastated Haiti last year, and the massive loss of life caused by the ensuing Tsunami was just simply very difficult to avoid.

Less has been learned in terms of nuclear safety. Many incidences with nuclear reactors have been reported in the past, some of them triggered by earthquakes, yet little decisive action in Japan had been taken given the fact that the country is poor in terms of energy sources. Also, lack of learning does not come as a coincidence for a highly complex, high risk technology such as nuclear energy. As Ulrich Beck writes in his seminal text on the “Risk Society”, just published before the Chernobyl disaster in 1986: “As risks multiply, the pressure grows to pass oneself off as infallible and thereby deprive oneself of the ability to learn.” It now can only be hoped for that the worst case scenario in the Fukushima reactor can be avoided. And, as a next step, it seems likely and possible that a debate ensues in Japan regarding the governance and eventual phasing out of existing reactors and a transition to alternative and safer sources of energy.

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4. Events:

EAERE 18th Annual Conference

The EAERE's annual conference to be held in Rome, Italy June 29 – July 2, 2011, will be organized, as usual, through plenary sessions, parallel contributed and poster sessions and special sessions. Sessions dedicated to PhD students will also be organized.

The Conference programme will cover all areas of environmental and resource economics, ranging from topics prevailing in the general debate, such as climate change, Kyoto protocol, energy policy, ETS, green accounting and valuation methods to less publicized and very specialized subjects such as biodiversity loss, waste accumulation, toxic waste disposal, packaging reduction, adaptation to climate change, urban and transportation sustainability.

A pre-conference on Waste is also planned, together with a joint session with ICABR (International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research).

For more details please visit the conference website at www.eaere2011.org.

oikos Young Scholars Entrepreneurship Academy 2011 (Call for Papers)

The second oikos Young Scholars Entrepreneurship Academy provides PhD students and early career researchers in the field of Entrepreneurship, Management, Policy and Sustainability an outstanding platform to present and discuss their ongoing research projects with fellow students and senior faculty. It takes place 12-17 June 2011 in Hotel Lihn (Filzbach), Switzerland.

In 2011 they aim at attracting papers fostering new ideas and solutions with regard to how the corporate sector and civil society can leverage existing and new solutions overcoming key environmental sustainability challenges.

Abstract submission deadline: March 15, 2011
More details can be found on www.oikos-international.org/projects/entrepreneurship.

International Conference "Territory and Environment: from representations to action"

This conference aims to produce an overview of research in Western countries over the last forty years on the theme "territory and environment". It proposes to sum up the transformations that have taken place in the building and implementation of social and spatial representations, from the viewpoint of environmental issues. The idea will be to address the question of reciprocal influences, on the one hand of environmental issues on transformations of "territorial practices" and on the other hand of effects on the environment of these spatial practices and their regulation. In this context, the organizers hope to focus discussion on the results of these transformations in actual practices, governance, decision-making processes and the various modes of intervention of political and technical actors - expert or not - taking part in the territorialisation of environmental policies and the ecologising of planning practices. This bilingual conference will bring together international researchers around three main thematic subjects:
Axis 1. New scales of environmental and planning policies
Axis 2. The environment as a new norm for local policies
Axis 3. The renewal of government actions

The conference will be held December 8-9, 2011 in Tours, France. The call for papers, in French and English, is open until March 18, 2011.

The paper proposal form and all relevant information are available at the following address: citeres.univ-tours.fr/environnement

2nd CES "Critical Economics" Summer School: Environmental Values and Public Policies

The CES "Critical Economics Summer School", launched in 2009, brings together in annual meetings economists and other social scientists to discuss topics of shared interest. This series of summer schools aims at promoting a forum for critical research on the economy and in economics. The school is primarily intended for PhD students and post-doctoral researchers as well as young scholars.

The Summer School will be held from 12th-15th of July 2011 in Lousã (Portugal) at the Meliá Palácio da Lousã (www.palaciodalousa.com/?page_id=10⟨=en). Formerly Palace of Viscondessa do Espinhal, it is classified as Historical Heritage. It is located in Lousã's historical city center, with stunning views of Lousã Mountain.

For more details please click here.

Summer School on Participatory Methods in Social Sciences for the analysis of Water, Land use and Climate Change

Graduate students are invited to participate to the Summer School on Participatory Methods in Social Sciences for the analysis of Water, Land use and Climate Change (Valsavarenche, Aosta, Italy, 3-10 July 2011).

Application is now open.

For further details visit the website www.icrees.org.

Planet Under Pressure: New knowledge towards solutions

A major international science conference focusing on solutions to the global sustainability challenge.
The 2012 international Planet Under Pressure conference will be held 26-29 March 2012 in London. It will provide a comprehensive update of the pressure planet Earth is now under. The conference will discuss solutions at all scales to move societies on to a sustainable pathway. It will provide scientific leadership towards the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development - Rio+20.

Deadline for submission of sessions: 18 March 2011

The key aims of the conference include:

  • 2500 participants combining global-change science and policy, business and development communities
  • Scientific leadership towards the 2012 UN Rio +20 conference
  • Building trans-disciplinary research communities
  • Identifying opportunities for enhanced partnerships between global change science and policy, industry and the public
  • A new vision for international research

Building on a comprehensive update of knowledge of the Earth system and the pressure it is under, the Planet Under Pressure conference will present and debate new insights into potential opportunities and constraints for innovative development pathways based on novel partnerships.

The International Council for Science (ICSU)
The global scientific community must take on the challenge of delivering to society the knowledge necessary to assess the risks humanity is facing from global change. It must provide knowledge of how society can effectively mitigate dangerous changes and cope with the change we cannot manage.

For more information visit the website www.planetunderpressure2012.net.

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5. Job openings:

Expert in "Ecological Economics of Water Ecosystem services"

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is seeking for an expert in "Ecological Economics of Water Ecosystem services". The full job advertisement can be downloaded here.

Robert Bosch Junior Professorship Research

The Robert Bosch Stiftung would like to invite you to apply for the Robert Bosch Junior Professorship Research into the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources together with a German university or research institution of your choice. Applicants of all nationalities are welcome.

Areas addressed
They are looking for an outstanding young scientist whose research areas concern the sustainable use of natural resources. Research approaches may be based in the natural sciences as well as in the social, developmental, political, medical and public health sciences.

The research should focus on developing and emerging countries. The research results are expected to contribute to the solution of urgent environmental problems.

Scope
The successful applicant will be awarded a grant worth up to 1 million euros for a five year period, in order to set up a research group in a German research institution or university. The funds can be allocated flexibly towards covering salaries and research costs.

Candidate profile

  • excellent doctorate degree, completed no more than 5 years prior to the application deadline of 13 May 2011 (adjusted for documented parental leave)
  • compelling independent past scientific achievements and publications in peer-reviewed journals
  • international research experience
  • excellent proficiency in English
  • potential to obtain a leading position in his/her research field
  • non-German applicants should be prepared to learn German.

The application deadline is 13 May 2011.

For further information please visit www.bosch-stiftung.de/juniorprofessorship.

Researcher Position for Research Programme on Sustainable Development

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) - Italian research institute devoted to the study of sustainable development - encourages submissions for a research position within the Sustainable Development Research Programme. The successful candidate will join the team currently engaged in developing an integrated approach among economic Computable General Equilibrium modelling, climate change impacts and policy. Duties will be carried out at the FEEM offices in Venice, Italy. The selected candidate will interact with researchers of different nationalities, will write and present scientific papers. Part of the activities are carried out in the context of European research projects.

FEEM offers a truly international and interdisciplinary workplace. The strong ties with a world-wide network of research institutions engaged in environmental research and in particular on the analysis of climate change issues allows a continuous fruitful exchange of experiences. A full range of FEEM activities is available at www.feem.it.

Requirements
The candidate is expected to have a solid background in CGE modelling and at least 2-year research experience in the field, possibly related to climate change policies. A further background in environmental economics constitutes important added value as well as holding a Ph.D. or being near its completion. An excellent command of written and spoken English is essential for this position. Knowledge of Italian language is an asset but not a mandatory requirement.

The successful candidate is expected to begin his/her assignment in early 2011. The appointment period will be initially for one year, with the possibility for extension. Gross salary will be based on qualification and working experience (indicatively from 25,000 to 35,000 Euro/year).

Application requirements
Applicants should send a detailed curriculum vitae with a full list of publications and at least one letter of recommendation to: Monica Eberle, monica.eberle@feem.it. Please mention ref: CGE/02.2011 in your application.

Application Deadline
FEEM will begin considering candidates in February 2011 and will continue until the position is filled.

Junior and Senior Researcher Position in Climate and Energy Economics

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) - Italian research institute devoted to the study of sustainable development-is looking to recruit motivated and talented researchers to cover several positions.
FEEM encourages applications to join a team that is engaged in analysing a wide range of issues about climate and energy economics, such as economic modelling of climate and energy policies, technological progress in the context of energy technologies, socio-economic drivers of energy demand in developing economies, the relation between energy and development, the functioning of global energy markets etc.

Requirements
Senior candidates should have a Ph.D. in economics, or in energy engineering/mathematics/physics coupled with a solid economic background, and experience in applied research on environmental and energy issues.
Junior candidates should be recent graduates or young PhD students with strong quantitative skills and numerical literacy, with an interest in pursuing research in energy and climate. An aptitude towards modelling and programming complex situations (e.g. using GAMS/Matlab) is an important requisite.

The selected candidate will interact with researchers of different nationalities and have the chance to present scientific papers at several conferences and workshops. Part of the activities are realized in the context of European research projects.

FEEM offers a truly international and interdisciplinary workplace. The strong ties with a world-wide network of research institutions engaged in environmental research and in particular on the analysis of climate change issues allows a continuous fruitful exchange of experiences. A full range of FEEM activities is available at www.feem.it.

The successful candidate is expected to begin his/her assignment in 2011. The appointment period can be up to 3 years, with an evaluation after the first one. Gross salary is competitive and will be based on qualification and experience. Duties will be carried out at the FEEM premises either in Milan or Venice, Italy.

Application requirements
Applicants should send a detailed curriculum vitae and at least one letter of recommendation to: Monica Eberle, monica.eberle@feem.it. Please mention ref: SD/03.2011 in your application.

Application Deadline
FEEM will consider candidates until the position is filled.

ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Centre Funded PhD Studentships

3 fully-funded ESRC +3 linked studentships are available in the area of Climate Compatible Development Partnerships, with joint supervision between the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, as part of the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Centre.

This network comprises three studentships that will work together to ensure innovative trans-disciplinary (ie. both inter-disciplinary and stakeholder-engaged) research approaches are developed and applied, with best practice insights shared by the 9 supervisory staff together with input from partner institutions from the private sector, government departments and NGOs. The network is co-ordinated by Professor Andy Dougill from the University of Leeds.

Application deadline for all studentships: March 31st, 2011

For more details please click here.

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6. Publications:

Elements of Ecological Economics
by Jan Otto Andersson and Ralf Eriksson

book coverElements of Ecological Economics provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of ecological economics, an interdisciplinary project trying to give answers to the problems related to the overexploitation of the earth’s resources today. These include the problems of global warming (the greenhouse effect) and the overuse of the seas (e.g. overfishing). The book also gives an exposition of the closely related problems of global welfare and justice.

Read More | View Inside this Book



 

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