The Graduate Institute’s Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) has begun a CHF 2.5 million, three-year research programme to investigate how economic growth can be made consistent with environmental objectives.
The research programme will examine the incentives and impacts available to increase the use of wind and solar energy; hybrid and electric cars; as well as future technologies. Projects within the programme will explore innovation, diffusion and green growth; the role of multinational firms in spreading clean technologies; and clean energy technology diffusion and cost in developing countries.
The Innovation and Green Growth Programme will be carried out in partnership with researchers from the London School of Economics, the Harvard Kennedy School, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich, and the Universities of Capetown and Beijing.
The new research program will include various projects, including the Sinergia Project on Innovation, Diffusion and Green Growth which aims to explore theoretical, empirical and policy issues related to innovation, diffusion and green growth. The overarching objective of the project is to build a Swiss Network on the Economics of Green Growth, as a contribution to the Green Growth Knowledge Platform.