Projets européens en cours - Current European Projects

Dernière mise à jour le 9/02/12

RECWOWE - Reconciling Work and Welfare

Network of Excellence

Coordinator: Prof Denis Bouget, MSH de Nantes (France)
Scientific coordination: Bruno Palier, Sciences Po (France)

The paramount objective of RECWOWE is to create a new, tightly integrated and durable European research network capable of overcoming the fragmentation of existing research on questions of work and welfare. RECWOWE will integrate existing research activities on two levels. By adopting a common focus on the various tensions that characterize the relationships between work and welfare, it will firstly promote knowledge focused on both simultaneously. Secondly, by constructing a network of specialists from different research domains and disciplines, it will create a basis for joint activities. The ultimate aim is the constitution of a ’virtual institute’ federating the research excellence necessary to identify and understand the multiple tensions between work and welfare, as well as strategies for managing or resolving them.
RECWOWE will innovate in the field of labour market and social protection research in three related ways. The common focus on tensions will give rise to perspectives and questions for research that are currently lost in the ’void’ between existing research domains and academic disciplines. The activity of the network will promote new institutional and individual collaborations, based on novel combinations of disciplinary and geographical expertise. Combining these new questions and collaborations, RECWOWE will ultimately be a source of innovative new research projects focused on the interface between work and welfare.
RECWOWE will, finally, seek to effectively share the new knowledge that is built up through its activities. It will organize specific training actions for students and professionals. It will centralize and publicize existing and new sources of data on work and welfare, and disseminate analyses and findings through a dedicated structure. It will, finally, seek to generate a permanent two-way dialogue with political and social actors, so that its activities can most usefully inform the future choices of the European social model.

KNOWandPOL - Knowledge and policy in education and health sectors

Integrated Project
Scientific coordination : Bernard Delvaux, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium)

As societies develop, social identities become more varied, social processes more differentiated and occupational roles more specific. Each assumes a particular way of knowing about the world: what we think of as ‘the knowledge society’ is in fact a society of knowledges. In Europe, information and expertise are now more widely available and more widely distributed than ever before. At the same time, expectations of transparency and public accountability have increased. In turn, the legitimacy and authority of social and political processes depends on the legitimacy and authority of the knowledge on which they draw. Knowledge is both contested and a means of contestation: it has become both vehicle and substance of politics. Both social cohesion and effective government depend on integrating knowledge as well as interests.

Yet we understand relatively little about the process by which this takes place. What does society as a whole know about the problems it faces? How are its different sources of information and ways of knowing mobilized in making decisions? To what extent does government consist inmobilizing knowledge? Twelve research teams specialized in the analysis of sector-based policies addresses these issues directly in respect of two fields, education and health. Both are pressing concerns of both governments and citizens across Europe, and each raises questions about the combination of scientific, practical and managerial understanding in different ways. The project is both multinational and multilevel, in that it looks at knowledge and governance problems across eight different countries and in local, national and international domains.

The research is organized around three complementary orientations, which apply to both sectors and across countries and levels. Orientation 1 seeks to map the knowledge potentially available to decision makers in different countries and contexts, and trace the relationships between those who hold or produce such knowledge and those who take policy decisions. Orientation 2 analyses decision-making processes as such, paying special attention to the way information and understanding are deployed and learning takes place at different stages. Orientation 3 is focused on the growing use of regulatory instruments which entail the production and dissemination of information, studying their conception, reception and reappropriation by the decision-makers for whom they are intended.

We seek to develop an original line of research that synthesises several theoretical and conceptual universes. In drawing on cognitive approaches to public policy, we are determined to avoid both radical academicism and managerial positivism, assuming neither that the use of knowledge and the use of power are identical, nor that they can ever be entirely separate. Our key objectives are those of scientific relevance (theoretical and methodological innovation, empirical understanding and professional training of junior researchers) and social and political relevance (increasing and improving contact and communication between policy-makers, researchers, consultants and other experts, including professional leaders and client groups). The creation of an end user advisory board specifically reflects the intention to develop an integrated project not limited to scientific considerations. Our intentions are reflected in an ambitious dissemination plan consisting of scientific publications, seminars, symposiums, media presentations, an electronic periodical and a dedicated website.

ESSPrep - The European Social Survey Infrastructure Preparatory phase

Collaborative Project and Coordination and Support Actions
Scientific coordination : Roger Jowell, City University, UK.

The European Social Survey (ESS) has three main objectives firstly to produce rigorous trend data at a national and European level about people’s social, political and moral values in the context of Europe’s changing institutions; to remedy longstanding deficiencies in methods of cross-national social measurement, particularly in respect of public attitudes; to bring social indicators into closer focus as a means of monitoring the quality of life across European nations ESS data and supporting documentation are freely and swiftly available to all and have already attracted over 13,000 registered users. Many books and journal articles arising from the ESS have already appeared; many more are in preparation. Now starting its fourth biennial Round, the ESS is a pioneering example of the principles and practices behind the European Research Area, with funding from both the EC and over 20 Research Councils. We now seek to consolidate the achievements to date and prepare the project for its transition into an upgraded and sustainable Infrastructure. Although always envisaged as a time series, the future of the ESS has remained uncertain owing to a lack of sustained funding. Its diverse ad hoc funding arrangements that have sufficed so far are now in need of transformation, alongside a review of its governance arrangements.
The upgrade we seek is to secure continuity and expansion of the ESS as a lasting infrastructure that continues to contribute substantively and methodologically to European scientific practice and good governance. The Preparatory Phase will focus on the financial, legal and governance work required for an upgraded ESS. Building on existing ESS structures, the scientific partners will work closely with the nine national research councils in the Consortium, plus the European Science Foundation and the EC to secure an overdue Infrastructure for crossnational attitude measurement in Europe.

EUP - EuroPolis - A deliberative polity-making project

Collaborative Project
Scientific coordination : Pierangelo Isernia, University of Siena, Italy

EuroPolis explores the forms of democratic deficit that directly affecting EU citizens. We test the hypothesis that citizen involvement in inclusive, informed, and thoughtful deliberation about the EU increases access to politically relevant information, citizens’ political engagement in EU public affairs, perceptions of the legitimacy of EU institutions, a sense of belonging to the EU, and voter turnout in EU parliamentary elections. We draw our hypothesis from the theory of deliberative democracy that suggests that democratic legitimacy rests on open deliberation, and prescribes that citizens should become involved in politics. EuroPolis intends to assess the political outcomes of deliberative democratic practices by experimenting what would happen if EU citizens became substantially more informed about EU institutional arrangements, decision-making processes, and policy issues, as well as more aware of the policy preferences of other EU citizens. Would this make them evaluate EU policy alternatives differently from the way they would with limited information? Would their policy preferences change? Would their electoral choices be more aligned with their policy preferences and be more or less likely to vote in second-order elections? Would their electoral choices change? And if EU citizens had equal opportunity to engage in a thoughtful dialogue with citizens of other EU nationalities to discuss what they expect from their Union, would they identify the interests and problems they share with other EU citizens? Would they develop stronger bonds with fellow EU citizens and feel part of the Union they formally belong to? Would there be an increase in civic engagement? EuroPolis will seek to answer these questions through a carefully designed experiment that will assess how political and social attitudes toward EU issues change as a result of exposure to politically relevant information, and what difference this makes for political participation and voter turnout.

YOUNEX – Youth, Unemployment & Exclusion in Europe

Collaborative Project
Scientific coordination : Marco Giugni, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

This research builds on previous work on social exclusion as well as on civic and political participation to advance knowledge on the causes, processes, and perspectives for change related to the social and political exclusion of unemployed youth. It will provide an integrated approach to the study of the effects of unemployment on the exclusion of young people from the social and political spheres.

It has three main objectives: (1) to generate a new body of data on young unemployed (in particular, young long-term unemployed), but also precarious youth; (2) to advance theory and extend knowledge on the social and political exclusion of young unemployed; and (3) to provide practical insights into the potential paths for the social and political integration of young unemployed.
The overall design of the research has three main components: (1) a multidimensional theoretical framework which combines macro-level, meso-level, and micro-level explanatory factors while taking into account various dimensions of exclusion (social and political exclusion, individual well-being); (2) a cross-national comparative design that includes European countries with different institutional approaches to unemployment (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland); (3) an integrated methodological approach based on multiple sources and methods (analysis of state and EU policies and practices towards unemployment, a survey of organizations active in the field, a survey of young long-term unemployed and precarious youth, in-depth interviews with young long-term unemployed, and focus groups with stakeholders).
Three important features of the proposed research underscore its innovative impact: (1) its comparative approach allowing for bench-marking and best-practice analysis; (2) its multidimensional approach allowing to consider the mediating impact of (European, national, or local) public policy on the way people cope with their situation of unemployed; (3) its interactive research process spurring policy-learning by bringing together different expertise and knowledge, and allowing at the same time for the transfer of scientific findings into policy recommendations.

POLHIA - Monetary, Fiscal and Structural Policies with Heterogeneous Agents

Collaborative Project
Scientific coordination : Domenico Delli Gatti , Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

It is almost a commonplace that macroeconomic policies, if well conducted, are a stability-enhancing device. By providing a non-inflationary environment, they “keep in order” the backstage of a movie in which the actors -- firms and households – determine long run growth by means of saving/investment decisions. In this view aggregate outcomes can be improved upon by means of microeconomic or structural policies such as labour and product market deregulation, investment in human capital etc. The scope of macroeconomic policies, however, is much wider. For instance, monetary policy affects business fluctuations and growth through financial factors which are certainly no less important than inflation, as the current sub-prime crisis has emphasized.

POLHIA aims at exploring the role of macroeconomic policies in this wider sense and the nexus of macroeconomic and microeconomic/structural policies in an heterogeneous agents setting. Modern macroeconomic thinking must in fact go beyond the Representative Agent assumption because agents are indeed different -- in terms of real and financial conditions, labour market status, technical capabilities, expectations, market power etc. -- and this heterogeneity is crucial for macroeconomic outcomes. Monetary and fiscal policies affect in different ways different people just as structural policies do. Structural policies, in turn, can have macroeconomic consequences through externalities. Hence macro and micro policies are strictly intertwined: they can reinforce (or interfere with) each other.

The research group will exploit a wide range of tools. At the level of model building the development of macroeconomic frameworks in the New Keynesian tradition will be paralleled and complemented by the extensive use of Agent based models, which are particularly appropriate for the exploration of heterogeneous agents environments. Empirical research will be carried out by means of econometric models and experiments to study, for instance, the formation of expectations. POLHIA aims at providing new insights and useful suggestions for the implementation of both macroeconomic policies and structural policies and for rethinking policy coordination or coherence, which emerges first between monetary and fiscal policies and second between micro and macro policies. The natural candidates to be beneficiaries of this type of analysis, therefore, are policy makers: first and foremost central bankers and Government officials in charge of fiscal and structural policies.

MERCURY –Multilateralism and the EU in the Contemporary Global Order

Collaborative Project
Scientific coordination : Mark Aspinwall, University of Edinburgh, UK

This project seeks to understand the EU’s contribution to effective multilateralism. We consider evolving and conflicting (culturally-defined) meanings of multilateralism; its uncertain future on a global scale; the EU system of external relations in the light of the Reform Treaty and its implications for the Union's ability to shape multilateralism; and whether and how multilateralism is compatible with the EU’s shift towards inter-regionalism and strategic partnerships.

Arguably, the EU has done more than most of its partners to acknowledge new global challenges and rising demand for multilateralism. Its own positions frequently become focal points for international negotiations on conflict resolution. Nevertheless, essential questions remain unanswered about the viability of a European ‘way’ of multilateralism. Can multilateralism be defined in a way that transcends divisions within as well as beyond Europe, between states, nations and cultures, strong and weak, rich and poor? Is there a concept of multilateralism that overcomes theoretical schisms? Is it possible for the EU or its member states (or anyone else) to define and pursue a selfless, benign, credible doctrine of multilateralism, as opposed to one that serves its own interests ?

The problem of matching supply to demand for effective multilateralism will be the leitmotif for MERCURY, a research programme that will elaborate and clarify forms of multilateralism, develop specific theses about the EU’s contribution to multilateralism, and test them in line with the best scientific practice. Its remit extends to the interactions of the EU and its member states with regions outside Europe, strategic partners, and global organisations. It is interdisciplinary, drawing on expertise in law, politics, economics, and international relations. It advances a clear intellectual agenda – to explore, explain, and evaluate different conceptions of multilateralism-while aiming to achieve practical relevance.

EURISLAM - Finding a Place for Islam in Europe: Cultural Interactions between Muslim

Collaborative Project
Scientific coordination : Jean Tillie, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The central research question of this project is: how have different traditions of national identity, citizenship, and church-state relations affected European immigration countries’ incorporation of Islam, and what are the consequences of these approaches for patterns of cultural distance and interaction between Muslim immigrants and their descendants, and the receiving society?

We answer this question by focusing on three specific research questions:

(1) What are the differences between European immigration countries in how they deal with cultural and religious differences of immigrant groups in general, and of Muslims in particular? This question has two aspects. First, the more formal aspect of legislation and jurisprudence, which we will address by way of gathering a systematic set of cross-national indicators using secondary sources. Secondly, cultural relations are also affected importantly by how conceptions of national identity, citizenship, church-state relations, and the position of Islam in relation to these, are framed and contested in the public sphere.

(2) To what extent do we find differences across immigration countries in cultural distance and patterns of interaction between various Muslim immigrant groups and the receiving society population? On the one hand, we will focus here on attitudes, norms, and values. On the other hand, we will look at cultural and religious resources and practices.

(3) To what extent can cross-national differences in cultural distance and patterns of interethnic and interreligious interaction be explained by the different approaches that immigration countries have followed towards the management of cultural difference in general, and islam in particular?

IME - Identities and modernities in Europe

Presentation: Collaborative Project
Scientific coordination : Atsuko Ichijo, Kingston University, UK

IME investigates European identities, defined as a wide range of definitions of ‘us, the Europeans’ proposed and acted upon by various actors in and around the current European Union (EU), in particular in nine cases: Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Drawing from the theory of multiple modernities, the project addresses three major issues regarding European identities: what they are, in what ways they have been formed and what trajectories they may take from now on. Through a set of nine case studies, IME first investigates the diversity of European identities as it manifests in the nine cases. It then examines the various ways in which these diverse self-definitions have been formulated and maintained in different societal, cultural and systemic settings and in which they have been interacting with various processes and forces. It then aims to identify commonalities among diverse European identities in nine countries through a series of thematic comparisons of the cases, in order to provide the basis for grounded projection of possible trajectories European identities may take as the processes of European integration continue. The project challenges the conventional wisdom about European identities and the teleological implication which lies behind much of the discussions of European identities and aims to offer valuable insights into the contexts in which various policies of identity construction are pursued.

Contact académique à Sciences Po : Sophie Duchesne

SustainableRIO—Sustainable development reflexive inputs to world organisation

Collaborative project

Scientific coordination: Tancrède Voituriez, IDDRI

The objective of the project is to provide the EU with conceptual tools and applicable ideas to make sustainable development an operational paradigm framing EU policy making in the globalization process. Broadening the utilitarian, state-centred, and market failure approach often mobilised in globalisation analysis, we develop a reflexive framework within which time and irreversibility, institutional path-dependency and multiple actors, with heterogeneous knowledge, beliefs, preferences, technology and power, interfere in the process of policy making. In this procedural approach, the policy making process itself will be scrutinised and integrated as a key determinant of the policy outcome itself. Within this renewed framework,
globalization core challenges will be intersected with sustainable development conceptual challenges, which will be tackled specifically before nurturing back EU policy-making in the globalization process. The “ultimate test case for collective action” according to recent statement by Nick Stern - namely the governance of climate change and the bottom billion interlinked issue - will be used as an application case study throughout the project. The project’s main outputs are threefold: firstly, identify methodological tools to fulfil the empirical deficit in the measure of world citizens’ heterogeneous preferences across a range of sustainable development issues; second, develop conceptual tools to better understand sustainable development implications on EU social contracts and policy making processes; third, propose building blocks for a renewed dialogue on global governance within the EU and outside as “if sustainable development really mattered” to paraphrase Dani Rodrick.

Contact académique à Sciences Po : thomas.boulogne@sciences-po.fr

TRUST - Culture, Cooperation and Economics

ERC- Starting Grant
Scientific coordination : Yann Algan, Sciences Po

TRUST aims at looking at the links between culture of cooperation, economics and institutions, with causality running in both directions. The first step is to assess the causal effect of cooperation on economic decisions and happiness. Social attitudes such as trust seems a prerequisite to expand economic exchanges, in particular in modern societies characterized by the increased complexity of information and relations with anonymous others. Cooperative beliefs might also directly affect happiness by reducing the feelings of risks that humans have to cope with in modern societies. The second step of this research is to look conversely at the effect of economic policies on social attitudes. TRUST will assess the effect of human resources management and welfare state policies on cooperation within organizations and the society.
This project proposes cutting-edge methods to carry on this research agenda. First, it will track social and economic attitudes on the cyberspace by using a Medialab. The development of new communications technologies has triggered a revolution in the social traces that citizens leave simply by using digital technologies. The available data reservoirs on the web are colossal and can provide a new way to relate selfreported social and economic attitudes. It will also provide to the civil society new instruments of reflexivity on the state of social and economic cooperation. Second, new tools of randomized experiments in the sphere of social sciences will be introduced to estimate the impact of economic policies on social attitudes. These experiments will be run in the context of the management of human resources to understand how inequalities and organizational structure can influence cooperative attitudes.

Contact académique à Sciences Po : Yann Algan

INCOOP - Dynamics of Institutional Cooperation in the European Union

Initial Training Network (Marie-Curie)

Scientific coordination: Christine Neuhold, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

This ITN brings together Universities, think-tanks and high-level officials that all share a long-term interest in a better understanding of the functioning of institutions in the European system of Multi-level governance (MLG) and who have extensive academic and practical expertise in this field. Their interdisciplinary knowledge and experience is pooled with the main objective of improving the European career opportunities of young researchers by offering them a coherent academic training programme complemented with a professional skills training programme and by exposing them to experience on the work-floor through an internship at a think-tank or consultancy. The research focus is the rapidly-evolving field of European inter-institutional cooperation. The comprehensive study of cooperative forms of decision- and policymaking is of interest in the light of the current political and academic debate on institutional reform. Moreover it also contributes to our broader understanding of the origins, evolution and effects of institutions. Training ojectives: To instil researchers with a sound knowledge of quantitative and qualitative Research Methods and to get them acquaint to interdisciplinary research; To provide researchers with insights into Theories and Concepts of institutional cooperation; To equip young researchers with practical Skills that prepare them for the job market. Research objectives: To develop and arrive at theory-based explanations of the impact of institutional cooperation on policy-making in the widest sense; To collect a rich pool of empirical data and produce comparative evidence on conditions for and effects of cooperative governance in the EU; To derive comprehensive and comparative explanations of cooperation by adopting an inter-disciplinary approach.

Contact académique à Sciences Po : Renaud DEHOUSSE

ACCEPT - Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion: Responding to the Challenges of the 21st Century in Europe

Collaborative project

Scientific coordination: Anna Triandafyllidou, European University Institute, Italy

ACCEPT is concerned with the increasing cultural diversity that characterises European societies and the ways in which it is possible to enhance societal cohesion while respecting ethnic, religious and cultural plurality. ACCEPT debates the principles, practices, and institutional arrangements that are needed to promote tolerance and acceptance of cultural differences.

During the first years of the 21st century, Europe has been experiencing increasing tensions between national majorities and ethnic or religious minorities, particularly with marginalised Muslim communities. The question that is being posed, some times in more and others in less politically correct terms, is how much cultural diversity can be accommodated within liberal and secular democracies. The debate has been intensive in the media, in political forums as well as in scholarly circles. In policy terms, the main conclusion drawn from such debates has been that multicultural policies have failed and that a return to an assimilationist approach (emphasising national culture and values) is desirable. The ACCEPT project questions whether European societies have become more or less tolerant recently, what tolerance means in different countries but also in the same country under different circumstances, for different issues and with regard to different minority groups (immigrant or native).

The project brings together a wide range of European countries: notably western European states (Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, UK) with a long experience in receiving and incorporating immigrant minorities; ‘new’ migrant host countries (Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Ireland); central European countries that have recently joined the EU (Bulgaria, Romania, Poland) and Turkey, an associated state, all countries that mostly experience emigration rather than immigration but are also characterised by a significant variety of native minority populations.

Contact académique à Sciences Po : Riva KASTORYANO

Securitization versus Depoliticization in the European Union Asylum and Migration Policy: The Role of the New Agencies (FRONTEX, EASO and the Large Scale IT Systems Agency) - EUMIGPOL

Marie Curie: Intra-European Fellowship (IEF)

Scientific coordination : Renaud Dehousse (CEE)

This project examines the evolution of the European Union (EU) asylum and migration policy. It aims to elucidate an important apparent contradiction at the heart of this policy: the simultaneous co-existence of two seemingly opposite trends – ‘securitization’ on the one hand and ‘depoliticization’ on the other hand. The research project aims to account for this apparent contradiction by developing an original multidisciplinary theoretical framework, which combines insights from security studies, public policy and European studies. In addition to this original theoretical contribution, the project will generate new empirical knowledge through the application of the theoretical framework to three case studies. Those will concern the three European agencies dealing with asylum and migration, which have already been or are in the process of being established (FRONTEX, EASO and the Large-Scale IT Systems Agency).

Contact académique : Sarah LEONARD

Wage Dynamics, Sorting Patterns in Labour Markets and Policy Evaluation - WASP

L'objectif du projet de recherche est de développer des modèles de recherche d'emploi avec agents hétérogènes nous permettant de mieux comprendre les mécanismes de partage de rente à l'oeuvre dans le marché du travail. Il s'agit de construire des représentations réalistes des trajectoires salariales, fluctuant au rythme des multiples chocs de productivité auxquels sont soumis les travailleurs, mais aussi en fonction des recompositions des couples employeurs-employés que la présence de frictions informationnelles rend ponctuellement possibles quoique non optimaux. Un soin particulier sera ainsi consacré à la modélisation de la formation des couples travailleurs-entreprises. L'endogamie est une caractéristique essentielle des théorie du mariage. Il faut que nos modèles d'appariement soient capables d'assimiler une notion comparable.
Ces représentations formalisées seront quantifiées grâce aux données appariées employeurs-employés (type DADS de l'INSEE), qui permettent de suivre les travailleurs d'un emploi à l'autre, ainsi que les employeurs d'un recrutement à l'autre. Nous espérons que ces modèles génèrent suffisamment de différences inter-individuelles pour expliquer la dispersion des salaires que l'on observe dans ces données entre travailleurs, entre employeurs et à travers le temps. Enfin, la recherche sur les mécanismes s'accompagnera d'un questionnement normatif sur les politiques économiques, comme les politiques de protection de l'emploi. Une politique optimale est une politique qui met le maximum d'individus au travail, tout en maximisant la qualité des appariements.
Il s'agit d'une "ERC Advanced Grant" est de 1 809 520 euros, pour un projet d'une durée de 5 ans.

Contact académique : Jean-Marc ROBIN

An Inquiry into Modes of Existence - AIME

Cette enquête, dirigée par Bruno Latour, porte sur les modes d'existence et relève de l'anthropologie comparée. Elle vise à préciser ce que l'on couvre d'habitude du terme trop élastique de "modernisation". Le développement du vaste domaine des études sur l'histoire des sciences et des techniques (science studies) a eu pour effet imprévu de profondément modifier la notion même de "modernité", d'où cette idée quelque peu provocante que "nous (les Européens) n'avons jamais été modernes". Mais cette proposition n'est que négative. Pour lui donner un sens positif, il faut se lancer dans une enquête sur les conflits entre les "valeurs" développées au cours de l'histoire européenne. Or, cette enquête n'est possible que si l'on parvient à rendre partageable le jugement sur les conditions de vérité qui permettent de définir ces différentes valeurs. C'est justement le projet d'AIME que de proposer une sorte de "grammaire" de ces types de véridiction à partir de la notion clef de "mode d'existence". C'est à partir de celle-ci que l'on va pouvoir élaborer un instrument et une procédure pour tester dans un petit nombre de situations tendues comment les conflits de valeurs peuvent être renégociés. Le résultat devrait être une redéfinition de ce que la notion de modernité signifie en pratique. L'utilité de cette enquête, c'est de profiter du moment où l'Europe est en train de perdre son statut privilégié pour proposer une autre façon de définir l'histoire européenne en lui permettant de se présenter différemment aux autres civilisations qui sont en train de composer le monde global selon de tout autres définitions de la modernisation. L'une des originalités de ce projet c'est de croiser des méthodes venues de l'anthropologie et de la philosophie pragmatiste avec les techniques numériques pour construire une plate forme commune de négociation sur les valeurs.
Il s'agit d'une "ERC Advanced Grant", dont le montant est de 1 334 720 euros, pour un projet d'une durée de 3 ans.

Contact académique : Bruno LATOUR

Projets achevés

PRIME - Policies for Research and Innovation in the Move towards the European research area

Network of Excellence

Scientific coordination : Philippe Laredo, Armines (France)

PRIME stands for Policies for Research and Innovation in the Move towards the European Research Area. These policies are facing major transformations. The first relates to the changing dynamics of knowledge production, with the new ‘search regime’ of the new leading (NBIC) sciences, and with the research intensification of many industries and services. The second is linked to the changing relationship between science and society, with the burgeoning of controversies and public debates about priorities and research practices (such as GMO field trials). The third concerns the growing importance of both regional and European public authorities. This means that one can no longer simply equate public intervention with national policy and that we must fundamentally reassess our accumulated knowledge on R&I policies.

To address these challenges, our analysis suggests that, although Europe possesses important capabilities, the field remains fragmented in terms of both its organisation and its production of knowledge (constrained, for example, by the limited extent to which truly comparable databases exist on policy-relevant issues). It is therefore crucial to foster the emergence of a lasting structure to integrate the efforts of leading researchers in the field. Hence, the present Network of Excellence.

Our project is both international and interdisciplinary, bringing together over 200 researchers coming from over 4 disciplines and 16 countries. The network has developed a ‘progress model’ to foster excellence and the gradual integration of teams (especially those from accession countries). It has developed an innovative organisational structure to handle the demands of a NoE. We have constructed a Joint Programme of Activities that balances three ‘research activity lines’ dedicated to producing world-class research and three ‘structural activity lines’ aimed at achieving lasting effects in terms of structuring the field at the European level : They focus on database and indicators issues, training, and interactions with the full range of stakeholders.

CHALLENGE - The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security

Integrated Project

Scientific coordination : Didier BIGO (CERI)

The CHALLENGE research project - The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security - runs over a period of five years starting from 1st June 2004.
The project seeks to facilitate more responsive and responsible judgements about new regimes and practices of security in order to minimize the degree to which they undermine civil liberties, human rights and social cohesion in an enlarging Europe. It especially seeks to do so in the context of the new evolving international environment shaped by the events of September 11, 2001 and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The aim is to help reframe the security framework emerging in Europe to ensure that it starts with liberty (civil liberties, human rights and social cohesion) as its point of departure.
To this end it has created an Interdisciplinary observatory charged with the analysis and evaluation of the changing relationship between sustainable security, stability and liberty in an enlarging European Union, which upholds the values of democracy.

• The project aims :
• to understand the merging between internal and external security and evaluate the changing character of the relationship between liberty and security in Europe, especially as it expresses a transformation in the sovereign capacity to declare exceptions to a normal sphere of potential liberties and freedoms in the name of security, foreign affairs, stability and necessity ;
• to facilitate the assessment of the changing relationship between liberty and security over time in some especially sensitive sites ; to look at the different institutions in charge of security (police, intelligence services, military forces and private agencies) and at their current transformations ; to assess the specificity of the European context ; and
• to facilitate and enhance a new interdisciplinary network of scholars across many regions of Europe, and from many scholarly disciplines, who have already played a formative role in reconceptualizing and analysing many of the theoretical, political, sociological, legal and policy implications of new forms of violence and political identity.

CONNEX - Connecting Excellence on European Governance

Network of excellence
Scientific coordination : Beate Kohler Koch, Professor Jean Monnet Chair of International Relations Université de Mannheim

The Network of Excellence CONNEX is one of the few new instruments in the field of social sciences funded so far by the European Union within the Sixth Framework Programme of Research. It is dedicated to the analysis of efficient and democratic multilevel governance in Europe and will have a duration of four years. Multilevel governance stands for the high interdependence of political responsibilities executed at regional, national and European level. Efficiency and democratic accountability is needed because it is the very foundation of legitimate governance. 43 partner institutions from 23 European countries and more than 170 scholars cooperate within the network. The consortium is coordinated by the MZES, a research centre at the University of Mannheim, Germany. CONNEX seeks to integrate independent fundamental research and to mobilise outstanding scholars from different disciplines to deepen our knowledge on European multilevel governance and to build a Europewide research community which stands for scientific excellence. It also aims to contribute to the public debate on the future of European governance. Its objectives are reflected in the following 3 tasks :

• Task 1 : to provide information and easy access to accumulated knowledge (stock-taking)
• Task 2 : to integrate research on the conditions and instruments of efficiency and democracy in a multilevel system
• Task 3 : to disseminate state of the art knowledge and to communicate with the wider world of academia, policy makers and other possible users of this research.
• Research Group 1 : Institutional dynamics and the transformation of European politics (Morten Egeberg/University of Oslo)
• Research Group 2 : Democratic governance and multilevel accountability (Deirdre Curtin/University of Utrecht)
• Research Group 3 : The citizens perception of accountability (Michael Marsh/Trinity College Dublin)
• Research Group 4 : Civil society and interest representation in EU-Governance (Beate Kohler-Koch/University of Mannheim)
• Research Group 5 : Social capital as catalyst of civic engagement and quality of governance(Frane Adam/University of Ljubljana)
• Research Group 6 : The transformation of the European policy space (Renaud Dehousse/Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris)

NEWGOV - New mode of governances project

Integrated Project

Scientific coordination: Martin Rhodes, Professor SPS Department European University Institute (Florence)

The pan-European project will examine the transformation of governance in and beyond Europe by mapping, evaluating and analysing new modes of governance. It is funded by the European Union under the Sixth Framework Programme from 2004 up to 2008. NEWGOV includes 24 projects and 2 transversal task forces and has more than 50 participating researchers from 35 institutions in Western and Eastern Europe.

The aim of this Integrated Project is to produce a deeper conceptual, empirical and normative understanding of all aspects of governance within and beyond Europe, giving special attention to the emergence, execution, evaluation and evolution of new and innovative modes of governance. By new modes of governance we mean the range of innovations and transformations that are occurring in the instruments, methods, and systems of governance in contemporary polities and economies, especially within the European Union (EU) and its member states.

Our pan-European research consortium engages political scientists, economists, lawyers, sociologists, and practitioners to collect data on and to map and analyse innovations and transformations in the instruments, modes, and systems of governance operating at the multiple levels and arenas of the still evolving and enlarging European polity and economy. Of particular interest are the ways in which these innovative mechanisms and practices relate to each other (both horizontally and vertically) ; how they relate to ‘old methods’ of governance ; and what their implications are both for the effectiveness and efficiency of policy making, as well as the normative and democratic nature (accountability, participation and citizenship - and thus legitimacy) of the EU. In terms of instruments and modes of governance, we investigate new forms of multi-level partnership, deliberation and networks, as well as innovations in systems of socio-economic governance, producing new knowledge on how they have developed in different policy sectors ; how their implementation and use has differed across the older and more recent Member States ; and how they are articulated at the local, regional, national, European, and global levels.

Joint activities across the consortium as a whole include workshops, conferences, the mutual exchange and cross-fertilisation of ideas, information, and data, and through research training conducted in two summer schools.

CIPAST - Citizen Participation in Science and Technology

Coordination Action

Scientific coordination : Roland Schaer, Directeur de "Science et Société", initiateur du Collège de la Cité des Sciences

The CIPAST proposal aims at :

Bringing together European organisations

• (1) having significant experiences in the use of participatory procedures in scientific and technological issues,
• (2) belonging to the different families of experienced actors in that field (parliamentary offices, research institutes, science shops and science museums, academic researchers),
• (3) already structured in European networks (EPTA, IGLO, ECSITE, ISSNET).

Mobilising these organisations for setting up training programmes tailored to the various contexts in which participation of civil society is relevant ;
this training programme will be designed by processing experience feedback gained from +/- 40 international organisations with recent practice in participatory initiatives ;
the target audience for this training programme will be decision-makers (+/- 100) belonging not only to the political sphere, but also to research sector, non profit organisations and industry ; a special effort will be made to identify participants in the new member states of the E.U. ;
re-usable training tools will be produced to support the expanding CIPAST network and capitalise the outcomes of the programme.
Relying on that transfer of expertise and training activity, CIPAST platform will moreover contribute to structure an expanded network of European organisations involved in participatory processes, through dissemination of best practises and circulation of information and documentation, thanks to the management of a discussion list, a website and a European newsletter, and to the organisation of several workshops.

EU-Consent - Wider Europe, deeper integration ? “Constructing Europe” Network

Network of Excellence

Scientific coordination : Wolfgang Wessels, Professeur chaire Jean Monnet, Université de Cologne

“EU-CONSENT” (“Constructing Europe” Network) as a network of excellence for joined research and teaching will look at the construction of a new Europe especially from 2005-2008. It will address questions of the mutual reinforcing effects of deepening and widening by developing and working with three sets of expectations for analysing the past and developing an innovative framework for the future integration beyond Western Europe. Within such a conceptual framework 25 teams will test lessons from the past in view of their academic and political validity for discussing visions and scenarios for the future. The major leitmotiv is that the Union is in the full process of reinventing itself - a development which is however difficult to grasp and explain.

The common framework will include integrating activities (common conferences and workshops, activ ities in plenum and in teams), common research (‘EU-25 Watch’ and WEB-CONSENT), teaching activities (traditional and virtual courses - EDEIOS, virtual study units on EU deepening and widening, as well as a PhD Centre of Excellence and internships for young researchers) and dissemination activities (public events and common publications). The results of the integrating activities will flow furthermore into common databases such as the E-Library, a multilingual glossary on EU deepening and widening, bibliographies and core curricula, which will all be made available on the WEB-CONSENT. It will also offer yardsticks for observing the progress made by the whole project.

The open character of the network which aims at being a ‘network of networks’, together with a full integration of young researchers into the network, respect of gender equality and concern for sustainability, are the core principles of EU-CONSENT. Its management will be based upon a consolidated structure, but following a decentralised approach. As an academic, but also policy-oriented network EU-CONSENT will be closely linked to political and administrative decision-makers in EU and national institutions as well as to NGOs, and civil society. A main target group is also the new Union’s citizen. A system of internal and external evaluation by senior experts and young researchers will ensure the monitoring of the network’s performance with an early warning function.

GARNET - Global Governance, Regionalisation and Regulation : the role of the EU

Network of Excellence

Scientific coordination : Professor Richard Higgott, Professor Director of Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation. Université de Warwick

Institutional and political crises in the governance and regulation of the world order under conditions of globalisation are strong. They are exacerbated by the renewed salience of the security agenda and subsequent tensions that have emerged in inter-regional relations (especially across the Atlantic post September 11, 2003) since that time. Thus there is need for European analysts and practitioners undertaking scholarly and policy-oriented research on the theory and practice of global regulation across the economic and security domains to come together in a coordinated and systemic process of dialogue. The EU is the most institutionalised regional policy community and complex system of governance beyond the territorial state, but research on regulation and multi-level governance, although sophisticated, is fragmented, weakly coordinated, and often detached from wider questions of an extra-European nature.

GARNET’s aim is to combat this fragmentation and weak coordination by developing a multi-dimensional, multi-disciplinary network of scientific excellence of researchers, analysts and practitioners with expertise in key issues and themes in global and regional governance. Particular focus will be on those elements of the global regulatory framework (trade, finance, security) that (to a greater or lesser extent) structure the modern world system. At the very least, GARNET will create a critical mass of European researchers able to interact on more equal terms and in wider global contexts, with the erstwhile dominant research communities in the USA. In sum, GARNET will create a European research area on governance, regulation and the relationship between multilateralism and regionalism..

Four themes will guide GARNET’s integrating activities : (i) the theory and practice of regionalism and regionalisation ; (ii) the identification of key elements in the regulatory framework of governance, especially how best to enhance collective action problem solving at regional and global levels ; and (iii) policy issues in global governance : notably those concerned with overcoming problems in the governance of trade, finance, security, environment, technology, development, social production and gender inequality, and disease ; (iv) the role of the EU in the advancement of research and policy in themes (i)-(iii). These tasks will be undertaken via the development of a virtual network, the development of a series of common databases, an annual international conference, a program of scholarly mobility ; a network of PhD schools, capacity building, the dissemination of excellence in its areas of expertise and the development of a series of jointly executed research activities around its themes.

Unlike the United States, which operates in international policy arenas as a unitary actor, Europe has yet to find common supra-national form. Moreover the US scholarly community exhibits a methodological and philosophical coherence not to be found in Europe. Europe speaks with pluralist voices on issues of governance and regulation and even lacks a forum in which such voices might mix. GARNET aspires to harness and consolidate this pluralist vitality of voices on a Europe-wide scale. It will build a stronger, more self-consciously European research community on global governance as a precursor to improving both scholarly presentation and representation, with all the attendant downstream implications for the coherence of policy-making that such improvement in the communication and interaction of knowledge would imply.

EQUALSOC - Economic change, Quality of life & Social cohesion

Network of Excellence
Scientific coordination : Robert Erikson, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for social Research

The EQUALSOC Network of Excellence has been created to mobilise and develop research expertise across Europe on economic change, quality of life and social cohesion.
Its aim is to stimulate high quality comparative European research on social cohesion and its determinants; encourage the development of additional research centres; provide an infrastructure for training the rising generation of young researchers in the skills of comparative research; and facilitate access to the most recent results of research for the wider research community and for policy makers.
The central focus is on social cohesion and its dependence on social differentiation, assessing the relationships between the growing importance of knowledge in the economy, the different chances that individuals and groups experience with respect to the quality of life, and social cohesion.
Drawing upon the organisational experience acquired in previous successful EU networks, EQUALSOC is using a rich array of data from national research programmes and a European Social Survey module it participated in constructing.
Leading researchers across Europe in economics, political science, social policy and sociology are involved in EQUALSOC activities; particular emphasis has been put on integrating female researchers in the network’s research.

DEMO-Net - The Democracy Network

Network of excellence

Scientific coordination

DEMO_net will promote and develop, through a focussed and integrated research programme, technological and socio-technical excellence in eParticipation tools and methodologies. DEMO_net will build on the experience accumulated by leading European research organisations that have studied the underlying principles of Participation and actively worked with governments across Europe in applying and evaluating eParticipation. DEMO_net will advance the way research is carried out in Europe with respect to quality, efficiency, innovation and impact to overcome the currently fragmented approach to eParticipation in this important European research area.

To achieve this DEMO_net will :

• Co-ordinate and integrate the members’ research activities clustered around 6 research and technological objectives. Achieve close and sustained co-operation between overnment and academia, in order to improve the quality of research and understanding on both sides.
• Assess and compare research already made on eParticipation in cities, regions and countries across Europe and worldwide.
• Provide the necessary technological infrastructure to facilitate discussion, co-operation and data exchange.
• Mobilise relationships among the many stakeholders involved with participation research and also those dependant on the results of that research.
• Ensure dissemination of research outcomes to widest possible audience for the benefit of researchers, government and citizens.

DEMO_net is designed to help secure the future of democracy and the participation of citizens in decision-making processes within public administrations and public- agencies, and to address the various needs for eParticipation and eGovernance in the different EU member countries. To ensure sustainability of the research and dissemination of the results expert, practitioners from government agencies will support DEMO_net across Europe.

LOCAL MULTIDEM - Multicultural Democracy and Immigrants’ Social Capital in Europe

Specific Targeted Research or Innovation Project

Scientific coordination : Dr Laura Morales, University of Murcia (Spain).

The main objective of this project is to study the degree of political integration of the foreign immigrant population in several European cities, and therefore to study multicultural democracy at the local level. This project defines the concept of political integration as the combination of the degree of socio-political participation and the level of trust and acceptance of the political values, institutions and elites of the host society.

• The questions that guide the whole research are the following :
  (1) To what extent is the immigrant population politically integrated into the local life of their cities ?
  (2) Are there significant differences in the degree to which different ethnic, cultural or national groups are politically integrated into the local life ?
  (3) If such differences exist, what factors help explain the variations in the degree of political integration from one immigrant group to another ?
• The analytical approach of the research considers the potential influence of four types of factors : (1) immigrants’ individual characteristics ;
  (2) the structuring of immigrants’ organizations along ethnic, national or geo-cultural cleavages ;
  (3) the structure of institutional and discursive opportunities ; and
  (4) the characteristics of the immigrant groups within the host society.
• The research will collect the necessary information at three different levels of analysis :
  (1) the contextual or macro level, through the use of secondary sources and interviews with political and administrative authorities ;
  (2) the organizational or meso level, through the study of immigrants’ organisational structures and networks, carried out with surveys to immigrants’ associations ;
  (3) the individual or micro level, through a survey to immigrant residents of different origins (with a control group of national-born citizens).

PROKNOW - Production of Knowledge Revisited: The Impact of Academic Spin-Offs on Public Research Performance in Europe

Specific Targeted Research Project

Scientific coordination : Prof Dr Andreas Knie and Dr Dagmar Simon, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), Germany

PROKNOW aims to analyse the interactions between public research institutions and academic spin-offs focussing on the impact of entrepreneurial activities on the academic research system. Based upon approaches in organisational sociology, science policy studies and science studies and analysing the gains and losses of spin-off activities for public research institutions, PROKNOW examines the relevance of public and private forms of knowledge in innovative processes of knowledge production. Academic spin-offs often epitomise innovative forms of knowledge production and are thus an exemplary topic to study innovation processes in the interaction of science, economy and society. PROKNOW proposes a European-wide comparison of research institutions in seven countries, including the three biggest research systems, Germany, France and the UK, and the - often considered to be innovative - systems of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland, and the associated candidate country Bulgaria. Institutionally, PROKNOW analyses different forms of public sector research institutions, university and extra-university institutions. In terms of economic sectors, the project focuses on life sciences, information sciences and nanotechnology. Thus, PROKNOW can help provide the institutional and organisational conditions for a profitable interaction between public research institutions and academic spin-offs.

EU NESCA - Network of European Studies Centres in Asia

Specific Support Action

Scientific coordination : Prof Reimund Seidelmann, Justus Liebig Griessen University (Germany)

The project aims at widen and deepen the research dialogue between the European Research Area and the Network of European Studies Centres in Asia (NESCA) as well as European Studies Associations in Asia. The Consortium consists of 4 European and 6 Asian universities with special engagement and related infrastructure in European Studies. Main objectives are
1) to transfer and to disseminate latest research on issues relevant for Asia to Asia’s European Studies community, politics, and public,
2) to transfer Asian research in European Studies in general and on EU-Asian cooperation in particular to the European Research Area, and
3) to promote sustainable cooperation between universities and research institutions in the European Research Area and Asia. This is done through a series of 6 joint workshops plus 3 annual conferences organised by consortium participants within a 3-years-period, a “Portal” and an online “Forum” within the Internet for easy information and dialogue.

In addition, the project seeks to disseminate research into teaching/education, media and the public, and politics. Special emphasis is given to the involvement of the academic successor generation and women researchers.

CRIMPREV - Assessing Deviance, Crime and Prevention in Europe

Coordination Action
Scientific coordination : René Lévy, Director of GERN, CNRS (France)

The project aims at producing comparative, European added value based on knowledge accrued within national frameworks about social, political, economic, legal and cultural factors conducive to socially deviant behaviour and crime, their perception among the public and the public policies pertaining to these phenomena. The project provides an opportunity for researchers, academics and decision-makers to go beyond previous cooperation and unite their resources to produce a European comparative assessment of the following issues:

• Factors of deviant behaviours
• Processes of criminalisation
• Perceptions of crime
• Links between illegal or socially deviant behaviour and organised crime
• Public policies of prevention

The project defines four objectives:

• The production of scholarly added value
• The dissemination of the scholarly added value produced
• The development of an interdisciplinary scientific network
• The provision, for officials at various governmental levels, of methodological skills and guidelines for the measurement of deviant and criminal behaviours, the perception thereof, and the evaluation of public prevention policies

MEDUSE - Governance, health, and medicine. Opening dialogue between social scientists and users

Specific Support Action

Scientific coordination : Madeleine Akrich, ARMINES (France)

MEDUSE aims at setting up a dialogue between social scientists and non-academic actors directly concerned with three issues :

1 - The dynamics of patient organizations in the European area (for more details, click here)

2 - The emergence of new technologies and responsibilities for health care at home across diverse European systems and cultures (for more details, click here)

3 - Cross-national and European perspectives on health safety agencies (for more details, click here)

These three topics appear as highly relevant issues for health policies: they put matters of governance and citizenship to the front, due to new framings of knowledge production and use in the domain of health and medicine. All three also relate to the increasing role played by non traditional actors (e.g. patient organizations, health agencies, networks for care at home).

Three conferences will be organized, gathering social scientists, professionals, patients' representatives, decision and policy makers, both at national and European levels. These conferences will be framed as to put academic and non-academic participants on an equal footing. Exchanges will concern: questions likely to be put on the scientific and political agenda; desirable knowledge for addressing these questions; modalities of partnership between social scientists and non-academic actors which will suit the best for producing this knowledge. Recommendations on these matters will be issued at the end of the project.

MACOSPOL – Mapping controversies on science for politics

Network of excellence

MACOSPOL is a joint research enterprise that gathers scholars in science, technology and society across Europe. Its goal is to devise a collaborative platform to help students, professionals and citizens in mapping out scientific and technical controversies.

Technical democracy requires spaces and instruments to facilitate public involvement in technological and scientific issues. Such democratic equipment is yet to be assembled, even though much theoretical research has been done to envision its articulation. At the same time, digital innovations are providing an increasing number of new instruments and forums that can be used to promote public participation.

MACOSPOL has been set up to facilitate the connection between these two developments, allowing the best research in science, technology and society to ally with the best research on web-based tools.

GAIA- Governance and Agents in Institutional Architecture on Climate and Energy

Individual fellowship

Marie Curie : International Incoming Fellowship
Scientific coordination : Laurence Tubiana, Sciences Po

The project is aiming at drawing a clear map of the effectiveness of various ongoing initiatives on climate change and energy issues, within and outside the UN framework, by focusing on governance functions and actors performing the functions, including nation states, business and industry, NGOs, scientific networks and international organizations. It further develops scenarios on mid- to long- term institutional architectures on climate and energy in view of reaching an emerging global consensus on halving global GHG emissions by 2050, and to evaluate the scenarios in terms of the amount of GHG emission reductions and their paths. In other words, this project will work on emission differentiations by using differentiation models developed through political scientific institutional scenariomaking.
Through this exercise, which required inter-disciplinary collaboration with emission reduction model, environmental effectiveness of the institutions will be evaluated in comparable way. This is one of the challenges of the GAIA project, which lies in bridging the gap between studies on institutional architecture in terms of political scientific analysis and social economic and engineering models on GHG emissions reductions towards low carbon society. The project has a strong policy-orientation in Europe and Japan, both of which are the key actors in the negotiation processes on post 2012 institutional architecture on climate change as well as implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Therefore, the results of the project, by presenting ways to enhance and link ongoing initiatives and to evaluate environmental effectiveness of them, are expected to give impacts on the actual design of post 2012 mid- to long-term institutional architecture on climate change and energy, let alone its contribution to scientific development in such disciplines as political science and international relations, and environmental policy studies.

Contact académique à Sciences Po : Norichika KANIE

MICROREB - Micro-dynamics of rebellions: An inquiry into the role of middle level commanders in Chad

Individual fellowship

Marie Curie : International Outgoing Fellowship
Scientific coordination : Jean-François Bayart, Sciences Po

This research project seeks to extend the literature on the micro-dynamics of civil wars by focusing on a little-studied issue: the role of middle level commanders in unstable armed groups. How do they broker and shape the relationships of politico-military leaders and grassroots combatants? Our contention is that middle level commanders play a crucial role in shaping rebel groups’ profile and conduct even if they do not dictate the movement’s political agenda. This research will be conducted in Eastern Chad where armed groups have proliferated since the 1970s. Drawing on her past experience of fieldwork in this region, the fellow will carry out her research with a qualitative method. The analysis, which will provide a historically and socially grounded understanding of rebel hierarchy in Chad, seeks to open up a new set of questions on a conflict which has not received adequate attention.
In addition to a contribution to the extant literature on armed conflicts, this research will deliver timely, policy-relevant findings at a crucial point when the European Union has deployed its biggest peace keeping mission in Chad.