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News on Environmental Policy and Governance (EPG), the ESEE Journal

The journal of Environmental Policy and Governance will produce an issue covering material from the ESEE 2015 conference “Transformations” organised in Leeds, UK. In line with the conference theme, the special issue aims at bringing together cutting-edge research in ecological economics that explores solutions for the transformation to a sustainable society, in theory or in practice. In this context, authors are encouraged to specify the way their contribution advances thinking and practice in ecological economics on transformations, as appropriate, in the main text of their paper. Papers addressing the following topics are particularly welcomed: post-growth economics (degrowth and steady state economics, ecological macroeconomics; societal metabolism); incentives and institutions for ecosystems and biodiversity; trade, distribution and environmental justice; human well-being; new business models; changing patterns of human behaviour; communities of practice.

Manuscripts should include an abstract of max. 250 words and be approximately 7,000 – 8,000 words in length. Standard EPG rules apply in the submission process as indicated in the author guidelines at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1756-9338. Interested conference participants should send their manuscripts and other related documents as an email attachment to esee2015@leeds.ac.uk with a note indicating that this is for the special conference issue of EPG journal. The deadline for submissions is 15 October 2015.

Begum Ozkaynak

On Upcoming ESEE Elections and Call for Nominations

Dear ESEE Members,

As announced in the editorial, the terms of office of the ESEE President, 2 Vice-Presidents, 3 Board Members, and 1 Student Representative is ending after 3 years. Same as last year, we will hold two separate but parallel elections—one for ordinary board members and one for the student representative in November 2015.

Our election committee is chaired by the ESEE Vice-President Tatiana Kluvankova-Oravska and includes our new board member Felix Rauschmayer, our country contact Inge Ropke and our student representative Leslie Carnoye. As usual, they will count on your feedback and on your interest in playing an active role in the ESEE Board and get nominations for the election later this year.

The official calendar for 2015 is as follows:

• Monday, October 5 – Sunday, November 1: 4 weeks nomination period
• Beginning of November: Preparations for elections
• Friday, November 20 – Friday, December 11: 3 weeks election period

To become a nominee the person has to be supported by five ESEE Members eligible to vote. All nominations for elections shall be made in writing to the secreteriat, using the email-address: esee.elections@gmail.com and must be received by Sunday, 1 November 2015.

• Nomination shall include the names of the supporters. Supporters are asked to express their support directly to the secreteriat (esee.elections@gmail.com) also up to the same deadline.
• A brief CV, a photo and 5 lines on the motivation for working in the Board shall be provided to be put on the ESEE website as a pdf file for the election period.
• Nominees for student representatives have to proof their continuing student status.

Information on the candidates and the voting procedure will be given at the ESEE website. However, as only active ESEE Members paying their membership fees are entitled to stand and/or vote for the board elections, we encourage you to renew your membership (or become a member if you are not yet one!) as soon as possible. Regarding the student representative, only active student members can stand for elections, but all ESEE student members (paying and non-paying) will vote for the student representative. Based on the election calendar, in both cases, you need to join ESEE until Friday, 13 November 2015 to be eligible to vote in this year’s elections.

If you have any questions regarding nominations and/or elections do not hesitate to contact us.

Best wishes,

Begum Ozkaynak,
ESEE Secretary

Suggested amendments to the ESEE constitution

The ESEE Board has informed about envisaged changes to the ESEE constitution during its Ordinary General Meeting in July 2015 in Leeds, UK, as well as in the last electronic ESEE newsletter (summer 2015). With this article, we would like to inform you about the concrete amendments of the text of the ESEE constitution.

Amendment a: ESEE is organised and operates on a not-for-profit basis. However, the “not-for-profit” term is thus far missing in the ESEE constitution and we want to make it explicit in the constitution. Therefore, the proposal is to include under 2 Objects a new and additional sub-paragraph:

“2.3 The Association shall not be organised or operated for profit.”

Amendment b: At present ESEE Vice-Presidents cannot become Committee Chairs according to the ESEE constitution. While there is no necessary obligation for Vice-Presidents to become Committee Chairs, we would like to provide them with the option to do so if they are interested.

Currently § 5.5.3 reads “Each Sub-committee will have as one of its members a Presidential or Vice-presidential Board member who shall not be entitled to also act as the Chair of the relevant Sub-committee.”

The proposal is that § 5.5.3 should read “Each Sub-committee will have as one of its members a Presidential or Vice-presidential Board member.”

Amendment c: The ESEE Board suggests changes to the categories of student membership. ESEE has two categories of student membership (see last ESEE electronic newsletter for details). 1) ‘Active Student Members’ with full membership and voting rights who pay a modest annual subscription fee; and 2) ‘Student Members’ who do not have full membership and hence voting rights, but can join ESEE for free. To encourage students to become more active and motivate more students to become Active Student Members as well as to reduce the considerable workload for the ESEE Board associated with manually keeping track of two different student membership lists especially during ESEE elections, we intend to change voting rights for Student Members. In the future, only Active Student Members shall be eligible to vote for the student representative posts on the ESEE Board. This amendment will need changes in two sub-paragraphs:

Currently, § 5.2.4 reads “All Members are eligible to vote for all Board posts except those to be held by Student Members. Student Members within Europe (as defined by the Board) may vote only for the post(s) dedicated to Student Members. The Board may determine whether or not to allow Student Members outside of Europe similar rights in any given election. Not less than 1 nor more than 2 post on the Board shall be dedicated to the representation of Student Members.”

The proposal is that § 5.2.4 should read “All Members are eligible to vote for all Board posts except the posts dedicated to represent students. Active Student Members within Europe (as defined by the Board) may vote only for the post(s) dedicated to Active Student Members to represent students. The Board may determine whether or not to allow Active Student Members outside of Europe similar rights in any given election. Not less than 1 nor more than 2 posts on the Board shall be dedicated to the representation of students.”

Currently, § 10.3.2 reads “Student Members will have no voting rights under this constitution except for the Board posts dedicated to Student or Active Student Members.”

The proposal is that § 10.3.2 should read “Student Members will have no voting rights under this constitution.”

Next steps: ESEE members will receive an email invitation by the ESEE Secretary to vote on these amendments in October 2015. The online ballot will start around mid-October and last for two weeks. The ESEE Board kindly asks for wide participation in this electronic ballot! Please make your voice heard for the changes we envisage!

ESEE Ecological Economics Training Institutes: Call for Applications

Deadline November 13, 2015

ESEE board is pleased to open its annual call for transdisciplinary and collaborative training institutes on Ecological Economics aimed at early career researchers, practitioners and decision-makers in Europe. Events can be focused on any of the diverse range of topics associated with ecological economics, but will share a common participatory approach and structure. Local organisers can (annually) bid for up to 2000 euros for events that meet a number of criteria, as detailed below:

EVENT CRITERIA
• Highly collaborative and participatory; not just a series of lectures and presentations.
• Transdisciplinary: including participants beyond academia, e.g. decision-makers, practitioners, community representatives, etc.
• Students are heavily involved in organising the event.
• Zero or low cost for participation, with some kind of bursary opportunities for those in a low-income situation.
• The organisers have to record participant feedback on the event and make this available to ESEE.
• Environmental awareness: a plan to minimise (and potentially compensate) the carbon footprint and other environmental costs.
• Involvement of one or more ESEE members to guarantee criteria are met and to further year-on-year learning regarding format and engagement.
• Organizers of training institutes supported by ESEE will provide a report on the event for the ESEE newsletter.

FURTHER GUIDELINES AND SUGGESTIONS
In addition to mandatory criteria, ESEE suggests the following guidelines for the events. These guidelines will also be used to decide between competing applications if more than one application is made for sponsorship in an annual round.
• Duration: 2 days for pre-conference events, 3-5 days for other events
• Number of participants: 20-30 participants; a relatively small group of students helps to build group cohesiveness and identity.
• A mix of student and post-doc with at least a third post-docs.
• Provide opportunities for publication of outputs.
• Provide opportunities for ECTL credits associated with courses.
• Remote locations preferred to maximise engagement.
• Family friendly with childcare options available.
• As the decision on competing proposals is taken by the ESEE Board, active ESEE Board members are excluded from submitting applications for competition. However, they are still free to submit applications, but these will only be considered in the case of no other eligible application(s) available from applicants outside the ESEE Board for the next year to come.

PROCEDURE FOR APPLICATIONS
Candidates can apply annually with ESEE for up to 2000 euros towards the cost of an event to be held within the following two years, provided it meets criteria, but are responsible for the remainder of funding. Applications will include a short rationale for the meeting including a description of the meeting format (max 2 pages), a budget, an indication of what budget posts ESEE funds will be spent on, and an overview of other (potential) funding sources.

Applications for 2016 can be made at any time by 13 November 2015. Please, send the application to esee.training@gmail.com

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3. Hot topics

Artificial Water Shortage: When May Economic Instruments Truly Help?

by Lenka Slavíková
Institute for Economic and Environmental Policy, J.E.Purkyne University in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic

Within environmental policy, there have been long disputes among proponents and opponents of economic instruments for nature protection (such as fees, taxes, tradable permits, etc.). If (but also when, how and how much) to pay for natural assets or amenities seems to be an endless topic. Recently, these debates have focused on payments for ecosystem services.

Nevertheless, our recent research in water governance in the Czech Republic has revealed the problem of artificial surface water scarcity at the national level, which is to a large extent caused by the absence of economic instruments. My intention here is to share some basic evidence of this problem.

I use the expression “artificial water shortage” to describe the following situation: users officially declare their interests to use large amounts of surface water, but practically they are using only a small share of it. Accordingly, there is a significant annual difference among permitted (“reserved”) and abstracted (real) volume of surface water. Why does this represent a problem? The situation is not problematic from the ecological point of view, since more water remains in rivers and reservoirs. Water supply management organized by a state administration, however, takes into account the declared amount of water to be withdrawn – i.e. usually permitted claims are treated as “reserved” volume of water. If there is a decrease in average surface water availability or an increase in its variability over time, significant costs might occur to “provide” declared volumes (e.g. including costs of building new reservoirs). To understand causes of this situation, the institutional background of Czech water management is briefly described. Subsequently, the extent of the problem is documented on data.

Role of the institutional context
In the Czech Republic, the surface water allocation has still been centrally planned. Users are entitled to use water only based on a permission that specifies who, where and how much water can be abstracted annually. This permission is long-term (usually 25 years at least), but it is not equal to a right. It cannot be transferred to a third person and it can be abolished or limited by the state administration responsible for its emission. Abstracted volume of water per year is monitored and charged – i.e. the abstraction charge is paid per each abstracted cubic meter and the collected finances are designated to cover operational costs for the state river basin managers. The permitted (“reserved”) volume of water is not subject to any payment.

As such, the balance among supply and demand is achieved by administrative decision-making. Generally, state water managers drive the water supply to be able to cover all valid claims. If there is not enough water “left” in the resource (i.e. if there are too many permitted withdrawals already in place or the capacity of the resource is low due to minimal flow requirements), the new applicant might not get the permission for another water abstraction. In case of temporary droughts (that might occur in summer seasons), the state administration can temporary lower all permitted volumes. If a permission holder does not repeatedly withdraw enough water, the state administration might change his permission (to lower the volume of water or to abolish the whole claim), etc. That is how the system works according to formal rules. If there is enough surface water over the whole year, no problems occur. Increasing water scarcity, however, produces calls for a more flexible allocation that is independent to ad-hoc administrative procedures.

Data proof
In order to document the extent of the artificial surface water shortage, an analysis of water withdrawal data was undertaken (about 11 thous. records from 2001 – 2013 were analyzed). Results are shown in the graph bellow.

Graph: Permitted vs. abstracted volume of surface water in particular years

Source: author

It is apparent that there is a significant difference among permitted and abstracted volumes of surface water – the declared amount is twice as big as the real need. Therefore, surface water scarcity is rather artificial than factual (the water is “reserved”, but it is left in a watercourse). The trend represented by the curve is rather stable in the entire 13-year period. Therefore, current administrative processes described above have not mitigated the existing gap.

The question remains how to deal with such findings in terms of practical policy making (if considering the change of policy grounded in research outputs to be the ultimate goal). Primarily, the important message about artificial scarcity of surface water can be articulated to policymakers to disqualify frequent arguments for new dam constructions. Further, one may propose the introduction of a new economic instrument that would charge users for the permitted volume (which represents the „free cake“, now). I believe that in the described context such a policy innovation would help to decrease the formal pressure on surface waters and it would rationalise the debate on future water management challenges.

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4. Events, jobs and publications

Call for Papers: ISEE 2016 Conference, June 26 - 29, 2016
Washington, DC

Conference Theme: Transforming the Economy: Sustaining Food, Water, Energy and Justice

As the Science of Sustainability, Ecological Economics must advance the transformation of the economy to support rather than debilitate the processes that sustain our living planet. Most fundamental to such an economy is its support of basic live support systems like food, water and energy, and its support of social justice and a quality life for all.

The conference will include field trips, breakout sessions, a community dinner, awards and talent show, and round table discussions.

Submit your abstract here
Session submission deadline: Oct. 5, 2015
(accepted speakers will be notified by Nov. 20, 2015)
Paper and speed session deadline: Nov. 30, 2015
(accepted speakers will be notified by Feb. 1, 2016)

More information

Job posting: Research Fellow in Systemic Approaches to Low Carbon Transitions
Closing Date: Thursday, October 15, 2015

The Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP), which brings together some of the world's leading interdisciplinary researchers on climate change economics and policy, is funding this Research Fellow position at the University of Leeds. The research will undertake a systemic, co-evolutionary analysis of low-carbon innovation, combining historical insights, case studies of current best practice, and future implications. The scope includes both demand-side and supply-side options, in order to estimate how rapidly a low carbon transition can be achieved, while taking into account barriers to change, alongside potential social and economic benefits. The aim is to synthesize this analysis into a quantitative framework intended to test potential policy changes, and thus provide policy guidance.

You will be based at the University of Leeds and join a research team led by Dr Julia Steinberger and Professor Peter Taylor in SRI at the University of Leeds and Professor Tim Foxon in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, who all have experience in applied and policy relevant research in the fields of energy and climate mitigation.

More information

Job posting: Post-Doctoral researcher for research on climate economics, mitigation measures on the agricultural sector, sustainability on the agricultural ecosystems in the Mediterranean.

Supervisor Prof. Kostas Bithas
Organization: The University Research Institute of Urban Environment and Human Resources which is affiliated at the Department of Economic and Regional Development, Panteion University, Athens, Greece.

Desired skills and experience:
• Bachelor degree on economics or environmental studies or agricultural studies
• Master degree on environmental economics, agricultural economics or relevant fields
• PhD on environmental economics or relevant field
• Strong background with quantitative methods, i.e. econometrics, simulation models
• Relevant publications

The programme foresees a grant of approximately 800 euros. Duration 40 months approximately.

Handbook of Ecological Economics: New book with special discount for ESEE members

Edited by Joan Martínez-Alier and Roldan Muradian

This comprehensive Handbook neatly encapsulates the field of ecological economics, the fluid interface between the economic and ecological systems. Leading scholars systematize the state-of-the-art and put forward their insights about future development in their respective areas of expertise. The result is a compendium of stimulating and outstanding contributions, interesting for both junior and more experienced readers alike.
Subjects covered include the analytical and philosophical foundations of ecological economics, deliberative valuation methods, social metabolism, ecological macroeconomics, the de-growth movement, socio-environmental conflicts, the scope and valuation of ecosystem services, traditional ecological knowledge, social dilemmas in common pool resource management; consumption patterns, global environmental governance and emerging tools for dealing with environmental problems, such as payments for ecosystem services.

Covering the most salient topics in the field of ecological economics and with a wide scope, from philosophical foundations to practical applications, this book will be invaluable to students, scholars, researchers and policy makers.

More information

Edward Elgar Publishing has provided ESEE members with a special 35% discount code. To place an order, email (Quoting ESEE35) to: sales@e-elgar.co.uk. Your discount will then be allocated. Deadline for the offer is 31 January 2016.

Call for papers
Environmental Conservation invites you to submit papers to its theme on Forest Ecosystem Services. Deadline for submission : 15 October 2015

Only original and unpublished high-quality papers are considered and manuscripts must be in English. Submitted papers have to (1) follow the Instructions for Contributors (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/envcon), (2) be submitted via the journal web submission route (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/envcon) and (3) in the cover letter indicate that the submission is for the “Forest Ecosystem Services” theme.

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5. Students and early career

The current student’s news section includes reports from student events, interviews with two best student paper prize winners and various announcements about post-doctoral positions, internships, summer schools and courses, and conferences.

Report from ESEE Pre-Conference Summer School in Leeds

From June 28th to 30th 2015, we held a pre-conference ESEE 2015 Summer School in Leeds, UK. We had 30 attendees, from 14 different countries, selected from nearly 90 applicants, ensuring a very high calibre of delegate. The main goal of the ESEE Summer School was to move away from the traditional PhD conference, which tends to be longer talks by attendees and quite passive. Instead we conceived the idea of a dynamic and stimulating summer school that would challenge delegates and at the same time provide a wide platform of shared learning. We had planned three main topics:

• A three minute thesis: we wanted to hear in a concise form, what people were researching and what made them passionate about their subject. We got exactly that, some really entertaining talks by people from an amazing range of backgrounds.

• Early career session: to listen to and then ask questions to people with more established careers, both inside and outside academia. What we learnt was that life is not a linear process, and there are ups and downs but that eventually the fog clears, you see where you want to go, and you can strive to achieve it.

• Transformations sessions: these were the key feature of the Summer school, linking to the main ESEE 2015 Transformations conference theme. We constrained delegates on the first day to think inside the box, working within established UN goals and targets. On day two, we stretched people to think outside the box, and develop radical change ideas and personal action plans. After the summer school, 4 brave people put together a 10 minute presentation and gave their challenge on Transformations to the 300+ opening ceremony attendees in the Great Hall.

We attempted to make the sessions dynamic, interesting and engaging. Above all it was a forum to hear others speak, rather than the organisers. In the evenings, and outside the sessions, there was great dialogue, and we heard excellent key note addresses by Dr Erik Gomez-Baggethun, Professor Sigrid Stagl, and Professor David Hogg.

We have set up a network of attendees, and are already exchanging ideas and continuing conversation we started in Leeds.

With best wishes from the local organising team: Paul Brockway, Lina Brand, Will Goulart, Rachel Huxley, Will Lamb, Jasper Kenter.

Best Student Paper Prize – Report from Leeds, 2015

During all biannual ESEE conferences a prize for the best student paper is awarded. The objective is to motivate PhD students to publish and to increase their participation and visibility within the ESEE community.

Papers submitted to the prize must be full papers in English, representing an original work in Ecological Economics and be written by a student as the only or first author. The BSP includes an in-kind contribution of books or Journal issues, a free entrance to the following ESEE conference, an exposé in the ESEE newsletter and website, and a refereeing process at least leading to an “accepted with major revision” publication status in the journal “Environmental Policy and Governance”.

21 student papers were submitted the Leeds conference. Each paper was evaluated by two reviewers. This year, the short listed papers were the following:

« Is taxing waste a waste of time? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland » --- Stefano Carattini, Andrea Baranzini & Rafael Lalive.
« Lighthouses and Ecosystems: Conditions for payment for ecosystem services schemes based on Coase » --- M. C. Remig.
« A Green Lewis Development Model » --- Guilherme de Oliveira & Gilberto Tadeu Lima
« What motivates members of renewable energy cooperatives? An econometric analysis » --- Thomas Bauwens
« Behind the life cycle of coal: Socio-environmental liabilities of coal mining in Cesar Colombia » -––Andrea Cardoso Diaz.
« Ecological Fiscal Transfers in Brazil – incentivizing or compensating conservation? » --- Nils Droste, G. R. Lima, P. H. May & I. Ring

The BSP Committee decided to split the prize between two candidates. Andrea Cardoso Diaz, for « Behind the life cycle of coal: Socio-environmental liabilities of coal mining in Cesar Colombia » and Nils Droste, for « Ecological Fiscal Transfers in Brazil – incentivizing or compensating conservation? ».

Congratulations! Let's hear them share their experience…

Andrea Cardoso Diaz

Please tell us about yourself.
I am Colombian and in 2012, I got a Scholarship of the government of my country to do a PhD at Institute of Environmental Science and Technology – ICTA at Autonomous University of Barcelona. My main research topics relate to political ecology and the ecological distribution conflicts of the global coal chain. I am analysing the case of Colombia as a coal export country. The research undertakes the assessment of environmental and social liabilities generated by coal mining activities in Cesar, Colombia at different scales (local, national and global) throughout the coal life cycle (extraction, transport and combustion) as an exercise to assess the ecological distribution conflicts generated by extractive activities of multinational companies in developing countries.

How would you describe your experience about the best student paper prize?
I was extremely nervous when I received the prize, at the same time I was extremely happy. Because after struggle and get frustrated trying to write my research as a scientific paper, at the end it was worth it. I understand that this process challenges the way in which you build your arguments, making them clear, concise and structured. However, it is important to consider other ways of doing activism from the academy. There is still much to say…

As a young researcher within the ESEE community, which research topics would you like to see more of?
Global environmental/climate justice.

What’s next, any specific future plans?
Finish my PhD and then going back to my country. Currently, in Colombia, the academic community faces the challenge to contribute to the “peace dialogues” with the guerrilla FARC, and build a transformation to a post-conflict era. I consider that this transformation must to include and environmental justice agenda.

Nils Droste

Please tell us about yourself.
I am a PhD student at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. My research topic is on ecological fiscal transfers and I am interested in applied econometrics.

How would you describe your experience about the best student paper prize?
The most interesting, fun but also the hardest part was harvesting and analysing data on protected area development in Brazil, at the Postgraduate Centre for Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture and Society (CPDA) of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. At the very end, while the prize was announced I got quite nervous and afterwards quite happy and proud.

As a young researcher within the ESEE community, which research topics would you like to see more of?
I am an empirical guy. I am interested in how things work in practice although its a messy world in comparison to clear cut theoretical answer – which nevertheless provide the hypothesis to be tested. I would therefore like to see more groundbreaking empirical research on how to solve the often immanent crisis of our socio-economic systems.

What’s next, any specific future plans?
Besides climbing and historical fencing: basically my thesis. The planned cases studies cover Ecological Fiscal Transfers in Portugal and the German system of fiscal transfers. Expect some more empirical work.Hoping that this will motivate the participation of many ESEE students and young researchers for the next Best Student Paper Prize… Good luck for 2017 !

Hoping that those short portraits will motivate the participation of many ESEE students and young researchers for the next Best Student Paper Prize… Good luck for 2017!

Report from the Summer School of Degrowth Autonomous University of Barcelona and Research & Degrowth, July, 6th-16th 2015

Beatriz Rodríguez-Labajos, Filka Sekulova, Fulvia Ferri and Claudio Cattaneo

“Inspired, motivating and refreshing”, as one of the participants in the Summer school on Degrowth and Environmental Justice 2015 summarised her experience of ten days course. The purpose of the summer school was to connect the claims from the communities in resistance against environmental injustice and the internal and external, environmental and social sources of Degrowth. Between July 6th-15th 2015 thirty students from twenty countries undertook a critical revision of the proposals being put forward in the name of degrowth.

The summer school brought together leading scholars of degrowth and environmental justice. Alberto Acosta, Joan Martinez-Alier, Barbara Muraca and François Schneider offered modules aimed for interactivity and collaborative work. As organisers, we sought a balanced gender and disciplinary composition in order to develop a highly interactive, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary course. The excellent performance of the students was, in fact, one of this year’s highlights.

The first half of the course was held at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. During the stay, we visited the emblematic social centre and the community gardens of Can Masdeu. The second half took place at the Research and Degrowth (R&D) centre of Can Decreix. The centre is located in the village of Cerbère at the Mediterranean border between France and Spain. These locations were rich in terms of learning opportunities on practicing degrowth and understanding local social and environmental conflicts.

Apart from the summer school logics moving from analysis to the formulation of proposals and their integration, the program provided a balanced distribution of participative, practical and lecture sessions. All afternoons were devoted to interactive discussions building on lectures from the morning sessions where participants worked in small groups accompanied by professional facilitators. These sessions employed a variety of methods, such as forum-theatre, world-café, environmental conflict mapping and group assembly process. As an outcome, participants wrote discussion papers, policy briefs relevant for specific political events and proposals for further collaborative work.

As a part of the outreach activities, several open events were also organised. In Barcelona, Clive Spash (Wien University) and Jeroen van den Bergh (UAB) lively debated about carbon traded as an answer to climate change. The authors of “Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era”, Giacomo Dalisa, Federico Demaria and Giorgos Kallis, introduced a much anticipated Spanish translation of the book. In Cerbère, the participants contributed to a debate on the future scenarios for the village. Local organisations are particularly interested in integrating the degrowth propositions in their future activities.

The proposal for the summer school proposal was originally inspired by two issues: the overall gap in academic teaching on critical theory in social sciences on master and PhD level and the increasing demand for academic events on degrowth, environmental justice and political ecology. We thank the ESEE Ecological Economic Training Institutes for the support to this summer school. After rich discussions and the generous engagement of both students and professors, we are motivated to look forward to the next year’s course, most likely focusing on the original, innovative, culturally specific paths to buen vivir, paths that lead to qualitative improvements in the field of health, education, social services and environmental conditions.

Case Writing Competition

Call for cases to the 2016 edition of the oikos Case Writing Competition. The competition promotes the creation of high quality teaching cases in three tracks: Corporate Sustainability; Social Entrepreneurship; Sustainable Finance.

Deadline for submissions: December 1st, 2015

More information

PhD Fellowship Program oikos “Finance and Sustainability”, Department of Banking and Finance at the University of Zurich, Switzerland

Deadline for applications : November 10, 2015

More information

Three-year, research-only fellowship in environmental social sciences, at the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reefs Studies, James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.

Closing date for applications: Friday 2nd October 2015

More information

PhD Candidate on Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development
Doctoral candidate on the field: climate economics, mitigation measures on the agricultural sector, sustainability on the agricultural ecosystems in the Mediterranean.

Supervisor Prof. Kostas Bithas

Organization: The University Research Institute of Urban Environment and Human Resources which is affiliated at the Department of Economic and Regional Development, Panteion University, Athens, Greece.

Desired skills and experience:
• Bachelors degree on economics or environmental studies or agricultural studies
• Master degree on environmental economics , agricultural economics or relevant fields
• Strong background with quantitative methods, i.e. econometrics, simulation models

The programme foresees a grant of approximately 600 euros.

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Content:

1. Editorial

2. News from ESEE and its members

3. Hot topics

4. Events, jobs and publications