Oxford Summer School in Ecological Economics 2019

On 15-31 August 2019, the Environment Europe is offering a summer course "Oxford Summer School in Ecological Economics 2019". The School will address key elements of the new economy transformation, exploring the cutting edge methods and policy applications in ecological economics. The course will be composed of theoretical and applied modules and will address three key elements of the new economy transformation: an industrial ecology approach, multiple criteria methods for decision making and new tools for measuring progress.  A particular focus of this forum will be on the synergies between smart and sustainable dimensions in the urban context and how smart technologies could enhance in the urban sustainability performance.

Introduction

The United Nations projects that 68% of global population will live in cities by 2050. This means that we urgently need a new strategic direction for greening our cities and making them smart to reduce the environmental impact of their performance, increase employment and economic viability, and to enhance the quality of life. Such a task requires a thorough assessment of sustainability and smart urban performance to establish areas of improvement, understand the inter-sectoral connections, find and neutralise the most important drivers of CO2 emissions, establish which policies, design approaches and transformations could be most successful to make our cities more sustainable.

Objectives and Content

The course is designed for multiple points of entry and could be helpful for PhD students, government experts, representatives of international organizations and business.

The School will draw on the EU experience of environmental policy and will focus in its applied part on green fiscal reform, climate change, renewable energy, multidimensional poverty measurement, smart and sustainable cities and values. The applied module will be taught by active professionals and experts, who advise international organizations, national and city governments around the world and have experience working with EU institutions.

Requirements

The requirements for the School are the following:

• 1. After you have successfully registered for the Summer School, you will receive access to the required readings. You will also receive access to over 100 seminal papers in ecological economics, which will provide a useful background reading in sustainability.
• 2. Each participant will have to prepare a presentation about his or her background (brief) and project (in more detail) so that all the course participants could get acquainted with you and your work better. The presentation should take 15 min and will be given on the first day of the course.
• 3. Each participant will be required to develop an independent or a collaborative project and present the preliminary results: methodology, data, key research questions, anticipated conclusion, including the sources of possible surprises, non-linearities and unpredictable behaviour.

Fees and registration deadlines

The application deadline is on 1 July 2019 and an application fee of £25.