Governance and Global Change

UPO University

Ever evolving conditions worldwide are challenging society to develop novel answers to environmental change. This implies assuming a certain degree of uncertainty and the transformation of management models towards a comprehensive renewal of the relationship between society and the environment according to emerging environmental scenarios.

The members of the coalition support several leading research groups at the national and international level, focused on issues such as ecological economics, political ecology, environmental sociology, environmental law, public policies, territorial management, and environmental accountancy, among others. Regarding CEI CamBio CSIC members, we must highlight the role played by the Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados de Andalucía, in charge among other things of Andalusia’s ECObarómetro, published by the Revista Internacional de Sociología, included in the Social Science Citation Index, and by the Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, which includes research groups on cultural, economic and social issues, and which also belongs to the Consejo Europeo de Investigaciones Sociales de América Latina.

Additionally, we must also stress the membership of the Instituto Mediterráneo Andalusí (IMA), hosted by UPO and directed by the prestigious political scientist Sami Naïr. The institute mainly focuses on climate migrations and co-development in the Mediterranean region, and also on monitoring open or potential environmental conflicts, most particularly political and military conflicts over the use of water resources.

Similarly, the University of Almería hosts the Centro Andaluz para la Evaluación y el Seguimiento del Cambio Global (CAESCG), also a member of the Fundación Patrimonio Natural, Biodiversidad y Cambio Global, the aim of which is the quantification and assessment of the social, economic and environmental costs of global change, while contributing to the scientific, technological and social development of Andalusia by increasing the competitiveness of firms, professionals and public administrations, promoting the development of new tools for the implementation of a sustainable strategy against global change and the loss of diversity and natural heritage.

From the point of view of research and teaching, several centres attached to UPO must be highlighted. For example, the Centro de Investigación en Contabilidad Social y Medioambiental (CICSMA), the creation and development of which are very closely related to the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research in the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). Similarly, we note the Escuela de Alta Gestión Pública de Andalucía (EAGPA). This school is a centre for the analysis and evaluation of environmental policies and of the agents involved in them, as well as an advisory body for the local and regional governments. The EAGPA has established close links with the University Autónoma de Barcelona, the European Institute of Public Administration (Maastrich), the National School of Government (United Kingdom), the École Nationale d’Administration Publique (Canada), the Kennedy School of Government (Harvard, USA), and the School of Management (Yale).

CEI CamBio’s aim is to transfer all this research being carried out in the aforementioned centres and universities into post-graduate teaching. That way, within the framework of the Escuela Internacional de Doctorado en Estudios Medio Ambientales (EID-EMA) an International Doctorate programme on ‘Cambio Global’ is being developed for the conflation of all existing programmes currently offered by the CEI member universities into a single programme. This new programme will also be coordinated with the prestigious Center for the Study of Global Change attached to Indiana University (USA).

See Governance & Global Change Thematic Aggregation