SNIS Call 2011: Accepted projects

The SNIS is pleased to announce the results of the 2011 Call for Projects in the field of pluri-disciplinary international studies. The selection was very competitive - only 8 of the 18 projects submitted as full proposals could be funded within the budget. Five projects have already been fully accepted. Three remaining projects are conditionally accepted and are subject to modifications. Their status will be updated by 6th of August

Please find a summary of the five fully accepted projects hereafter.

"At the centre of our research endeavor are the socio-political, economic and environmental potential and problems characterizing transnational large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA). This proposal is motivated by the documented forceful eruption of cross-border land acquisitions over the last years and the relatively limited academic knowledge of the circumstances in which these land deals take place – in terms of processes and contexts – as well as in respect to their impacts on local populations. Based on comprehensive case studies in Laos and Cambodia, the project aims at producing generalized insights for evidence based decision and policy making."

For more information, please refer to the project description page. 

Lead:

Professor Christophe Gironde

Disciplines:

Agriculture, Economics, Anthropology, Environment, Geography, Human Rights, Development, Law

Partners:

The International Land Coalition (ILC), The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Prof. Olivier de Schutter

Geographical Scope:

 Cambodia, Laos, China, Vietnam

"The overall aim of this project is provide a methodological and conceptual contribution to the theory of natural resources governance by assessing the spatial expression of land governance at multiple scales. We focus on land as a key natural resource. Land use and land cover change deeply impact biological diversity and respond to the complex interplay between socio-economic actors’ interests and institutional factors."

For more information, please refer to the project description page.

Lead:

Professor Frédéric Giraut

Disciplines:

Anthropology, Environment, Ethnology, Geography, Development

Partners: 

University of Geneva, University of Bern, Universidad Mayor de San Andres, National University of Laos, Laval University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Water Resource and Environment Administration (WREA), Viceministerio de Tierras – Sistema Unico Nacional de Informacion de la Tierra (SUNIT), The Global Diversity Foundation, Swiss Interchurch Aid (HEKS/EPER) – Niger Country Office 

Geographical Scope:

 Bolivia, Laos

"As the Millennium Development Goals declare, the achievement of a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers is essential. Safety is a priority, as the un-Habitat publication on enhancing urban safety and security has recently shown. This research focuses on safety with a specific, inter-disciplinary and comparative approach. The study is based on the analysis of innovative and reviewed cultural events and public art installations produced in three violent and unsafe African cities: Douala, Johannesburg and Luanda. Cultural events and public art are not meant to produce safety: they are a space of experimentation with side effects, one of those is safety."

For more information, please refer to the project description page.

Lead:

Dr. Davide Fornari

Disciplines:

Architecture, Arts, Security, IT, Sociology, Urban Planning

Partners:

SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, USI University of Lugano, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications Paris, Institut Jean Nicod Paris, Latitude Platform for Urban Research and Design Brussels, University Iuav of Venice Chimurenga Cape Town, Doual’art, Douala Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda Lettera27 Foundation Milan

Geographical Scope:

Angola, Cameroon, South Africa, Switzerland

"Mountain regions have been recognized as critical human-environment systems on the world’s environmental agenda. They also represent an important empirical domain at the interface of rescaling and governance. The Mountlennium project analyzes regional mountain initiatives with the aim of assessing the contribution of regional governance architectures to the achievement of two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs – 7A: integration of sustainable development principles in national policies & 7B: reduction of biodiversity loss). While so far progress towards meeting the MDGs has focused on the policies and practices of countries and intergovernmental organizations of the UN system, the originality of the project is to look at the role of the regional scale in policy diffusion."

For more information, please refer to the project description page.

Lead:

Professor Bernard Debarbieux

Disciplines:

Environment, Political Science, Geography

Partners:

UniGE, ETHZ, Russian Academy of Sciences, UNEP, Alpine Convention, Balkan Foundation for Sustainable Development, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

Geographical Scope:

Albania, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Armenia, Poland, Austria, Azerbaijan, Romania, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Kyrgyzstan, Slovenia, Lichtenstein, Macedonia, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Croatia, Czech Republic, Monaco, Ukraine, France

"Addressing the global challenges arising from climate change requires international environmental cooperation. Previous work on the design of international institutions and contract design highlights the role of participation, burden sharing, and enforcement for the evolution of lasting and successful cooperation. While scholarship acknowledges that in democratic systems domestic support for international cooperation eventually determines its long-term prospects, we know very little about how the design of international agreements affects individual support for establishing and joining such institutions. Our comparative research project starts filling this gap. We explore how the three key dimensions of international environmental cooperation - participation, the distribution of costs arising from climate change mitigation efforts, and enforcement mechanisms - affect mass support for these institutions."

For more information, please refer to the project description page.