Joint meeting of CORE Organic Pilot Research Projects and CORE Organic Funding Body Network (8 June 2009 - Rome, Italy)

The ERA-NET CORE Organic, conducted in 2004-2007, launched 8 transnational pilot projects, funded by the participants’ funding bodies. These projects are running for the period 2007-2010 and reached their mid-term at the end of 2008. The meeting was an opportunity to present the projects and their preliminary results at mid-term, including new research needs and how research may benefit the organic sector, and to have a discussion between project coordinators, CORE Organic Funding Body Network and other participants on experiences with transnational research arising from such projects

Co-production for innovation: the urban living lab experience

Urban Living Labs (ULLs) are public spaces where local authorities engage citizens to develop innovative urban services. Their strength and popularity stem from a methodology based on open innovation, experimentation, and citizen engagement. Although the ULL methodology is supposed to largely adopt a co-production approach, connections between the two have not yet been thoroughly investigated. The paper seeks to fill this gap by examining through a qualitative analysis three experiences of ULLs made in Amsterdam, Boston and Turin. Specifically, the paper aims to assess whether ULLs can be really conceptualised as a form of co-production and, if so, which elements characterised them as innovative in comparison to \u2018mainstreaming\u2019 co-production; Then it analyses benefits and drawbacks related to their implementation

Local Economies, Trade, and Global Sustainability

Bioregional and "ecological economics" theory describes the growth of local economic linkages as vital to move post-industrial economies in the direction of sustainability. This involves expanding local stewardship over environmental and economic resources, so that progressively more production for local needs can be done within the community. Far from existing solely in the realm of theory, this is a pattern which is becoming more and more familiar in many parts of North America and Europe. The blossoming initiatives to create local, community-centred economies can be understood in light of the long history of environmental challenges faced by people living in the industrialized North, and the double economic blows of recession and trade liberalization/globalization exemplified by the passage of GATT and NAFTA and the development of the EC in the 1990s.This paper discusses the dynamic relationship between globalization and local economic development in the North from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. It provides examples from Toronto, Canada of the synergy among environmental awareness, community organizing and "alternative" employment creation (e.g. in environmental remediation and energy conservation activities) which can accompany recession or trade-induced worker layoffs. The resulting local economic patterns tend to be "greener" and more socially sustainable than the globally-tied economic linkages they replace.This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Scaling Success: Lessons from Adaptation Pilots in the Rainfed Regions of India

"Scaling Success" examines how agricultural communities are adapting to the challenges posed by climate change through the lens of India's rainfed agriculture regions. Rainfed agriculture currently occupies 58 percent of India's cultivated land and accounts for up to 40 percent of its total food production. However, these regions face potential production losses of more than $200 billion USD in rice, wheat, and maize by 2050 due to the effects of climate change. Unless action is taken soon at a large scale, farmers will see sharp decreases in revenue and yields.Rainfed regions across the globe have been an important focus for the first generation of adaptation projects, but to date, few have achieved a scale that can be truly transformational. Drawing on lessons learnt from 21 case studies of rainfed agriculture interventions, the report provides guidance on how to design, fund and support adaptation projects that can achieve scale

Designing transition paths for the diffusion of sustainable system innovations. A new potential role for design in transition management?

Copyright @ 2008 Umberto AllemandiIt is a shared opinion that the transition towards sustainability will be a continuous and articulated learning process, which will require radical changes on multiple levels (social, cultural, institutional and technological). It is also shared that, given the nature and the dimension of those changes, a system discontinuity is needed, and that therefore it is necessary to act on a system innovation level. The challenge now is to understand how it is possible to facilitate and support the introduction and diffusion of such innovations. Bringing together insights from both Design for sustainability and Transition management literatures, the paper puts forward a model, called Transition model of evolutionary co-design for sustainable (product-service) system innovations, aimed at facilitating and speed-up the process of designing, experimentation, niche introduction and branching of sustainable such innovations

Clean and efficient energies for Europe : socio-economic impact of energy research

Report of the independent expert panelLaunched in 1994, the Fourth Framework Programme (FP4) covering research and demonstration aimed to improve the security of energy supply and to reduce the impact of the production and use of energy on the environment, in particular CO2 and the other greenhouse gases. Other important EU objectives were also addressed including strengthening the technological basis of the energy industry (e.g. employment and export potential), improving European social and economic cohesion and contributing to co-operation with third countries. It also supported research on overall energy RTD strategy in the inter-disciplinary area of energy-environment-economy. Six years after the Programme’s launch, at a stage when most of the projects have been completed, and the Sixth Framework Programme is being planned, it was considered appropriate to assess not only the scientific and technical quality of the completed projects, but also their impact on society, the economy and the environment. The present analysis was organised to allow quick feedback for the preparation of the new Framework Programme. This was achieved by convening a panel of ten experts from different Member States. Using questionnaires, project final reports and direct contacts where necessary, the Panel investigated the expected overall impact by examining the scientific and technical results as well as the social and economic impact of a sample of about 90 already finished Non-Nuclear Energy projects, most of them three years ago (time necessary to expect some concrete results), representing in total a e84 million investment by the Commission. The contribution to Community policies, particularly emphasised in the present Framework Programme, as well as the Programmes’s addition to European Added Value were both explored. The results of this impact assessment of about one-fifth of the projects funded under the Non-Nuclear Energy Programme of the Fourth Framework Programme for the period 1994-1998 (better known as JOULE), were analysed and critically reviewed and are presented in this report. Among the main conclusions of the report, it is worth noting that the vast majority of the examined projects have developed new technical advances. Furthermore, the commercial leverage of funded research projects is positive and its major non-commercial impact is on the improvement of the environment and particularly on CO2 emissions. The social and economic impact remains, in general, limited, but could be improved through better understanding and application of the European Added Value principles. The Fifth Framework Programme made a further step towards refocusing European energy research and aiming to provide effective responses to the major challenges facing European society. It is important to fully exploit the experience and the results from the research undertaken under the FP4 since the knowledge generated relates directly to the objectives of the next Energy Research Programme. It also provides the groundwork for launching effective and innovative approaches to implementing the “European Research Area”. Based on the present pilot exercise, the remaining projects of the Non-Nuclear Energy Programme of the FP4 will be assessed to provide a full picture of the impact of the Programme. Finally, the present pilot exercise should help to provide a methodological base for other research programmes to develop quick-response, feedback to decision-makers to allow for the development of better informed research policies and actions. It should also help to bring more quickly the results and socio-economic implications of European research to European citizens, companies and institutions

Scoping report: current status of index-based insurance in Bangladesh

With current and anticipated increases in magnitude of extreme weather events and a declining consistency in weather patterns, particularly challenging for agriculture, there has been a growing interest in weather index-based insurance (IBI) schemes in Bangladesh. A number of weather index-based insurance products have already been tested and applied across Asia and Africa, with varying degrees of success, as a mechanism to improve livelihood security by enabling vulnerable populations to transfer risk associated with climate change, extreme weather events and other hazards. In the process, these efforts have generated important new knowledge on how these schemes can be designed and implemented for optimal results. However, the practice of index-based insurance is still limited in Bangladesh, and the experience and knowledge generated by the different stakeholders involved needs to be better communicated