GOVERNANCE OF INNOVATION & CLIMATE CHANGE
Instructional goals
Governance of Innovation and Climate change is an interdisciplinary core course that has the ambition to bridge from theories to practice. Therefore, it has a strong interactive and applied challenge-based study component. That is why it is taught by adjunct and visiting professors that have a strong interdisciplinary bent that merges strategic planning background with social sciences from which to draw the ability to develop hybrid interpretative reflections in order to accomplish the processes of ecological and digital transformation through multi-actor collaboration.
The course focuses on cutting-edge challenges in governance research, with specific subjects covered through multidisciplinary seminars readings and broad in-class debate. The course encourages teachers and graduate students to do cross-disciplinary, collaborative, and problem-based research. It also focuses on experimentalism, to adjust novel solutions. The course will have strong synergies with the X-Labs referring to representatives of community actors, public and commercial actors to conduct simulations and build prototypes of successful policies and programs with the aim to address critical concerns in the governance of innovation (research-based innovation; innovation generated by policy experiments; social innovation), climate change and planetary boundaries (also in relation to the targets and goals set by international agencies; social, environmental and climate justice; community-based local development). The idea is to stimulate new ways of thinking of conscious thinking.
Therefore, the course's ultimate goal is to provide students with the analytical tools for qualitative and quantitative analysis, as well as the knowledge to understand the process of governance of innovation and climate change from the perspectives of multi-stakeholder decision-making and public policy-making at both the local and international levels.
Intended learning outcomes
Knowledge and understanding:
- By the end of the course, students should be able to:
• Analyze, discuss, and debate some of the policy areas concerning innovation and sustainability that are the most challenging for many national and local governments;
• Identify and obtain a basic understanding of the main legal issues affecting national and local government authority to set policy across a variety of substantive areas concerning sustainability and innovation.
Insights to use:
- After completing the study program, students will be able to:
• assess and interpret different hypotheses explaining key environmental, economic, political, legal, and social developments related to innovation and climate change; and
• evaluate the impact of future changes in the policy framework to regulate pressing social and economic challenges related to the innovation and sustainability ecosystem.
Making decisions:
- After completing the study program, students will be able to:
• prepare original challenge-based research supported by relevant bibliography and data analysis, and debate different perspectives on the issue;
• articulate and explore economic, political, sociological, and historical factors that bear on significant policy concerns confronting policymakers and policy communities throughout the world on the themes of innovation and climate change.
Students will be able to:
• convey policy-relevant concepts, both orally, graphically, and in writing, after finishing the study program;
• interact within groups and with practitioners;
• construct through the lab an analytic stakeholder mapping, legal by design toolbox, co-cycles and conflicts resolution strategies.
Course Contents
This course will look at a variety of policy and legal issues that policymakers are currently dealing with when it comes to the governance of innovation and climate change, ranging from territorial and urban issues (i.e. innovative efforts to encourage economic development and implement strategies to expand tech-based social justice) to global issues (i.e. environmental justice concerns; the implementation of global agenda on sustainable developments among others).
The following topics will be addressed:
• introduction as well as theoretical lenses - different definitions of governance for innovation and sustainability;
• polycentricity and stewardship as design principles for governance;
• economic governance, governance of sustainable development, integrated development, strategic planning;
• governance of mission-oriented innovation;
• democratic governance;
• social and technical justice;
• risk governance, environmental and climate justice;
• the importance of cities and innovation ecosystems;
• experimentalist governance;
• co-governance, legal mechanisms, and multi-stakeholder collaboration on innovation and climate change.
The lab will provide governance answers to concrete challenges identified by practitioners and key stakeholders in the sectors of 1. Cities & 2. Mobility/Transportation, 3. Energy, Telcos, Infrastructure & 4. Industry/Manufacturing, 5. Earth & 6. Wellbeing.
Reference Books
Useful readings will be:
a) A safe and just space for humanity - Kate Rawford, Oxfam Discussion Paper, 2012.
https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/dp-a-safe-and-just-space-for-humanity-130212-en_5.pdf
b) H. Nagendra, The global south is rich in sustainability lessons. Nature 557: 485-488, 2018.
c) Rockström, J., et al. Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2), 2009.
d) Mazzucato, M., “Governing Missions in the European Union”. European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, 2019.
e) Foster, S., Iaione, C. (2022) Co-Cities Innovative Transitions toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities, MIT Press, 2022. Available in open access: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5512/Co-CitiesInnovative-Transitions-toward-Just-and
f) Amnon Lehavi, Property Law in a Globalizing World (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Introduction (pp. 1-8).
g) Climate Change in urban water system challenges: towards an integrated anticipa tory planning approach, Bruno Monardo, Claudia Mattogno, Tullia Valeria Di Giacomo, Luna Kappler, in Piotr L., Magidimisha H. H. (a cura di), ISOCARP, pp. 588-599 ISBN: 978-90-75524-67-3
h) Luna Kappler, Somerville: Innovation City. TEMA, ISSN: 1970-9870. Available in open access: https://iris.uniroma1.it/retrieve/e3835326-ba56-15e8-e053-a505fe0a3de9/Kappler_Innovation-economy-in-Sommerville.pdf
Teaching Methods
The course will be combining scientific and technical methodologies, and mixed methods (deductive – inductive).
Each week the course will be articulated in:
- 1 hour – preparation for the lab
- 1 hour – lab
- 1 hour seminar
The laboratory will apply the experimental method based on:
- Quali-quantitative data analysis and assessment
- Survey
- Multistakeholder structured and semi-structured interviews
- Co-design
The multidisciplinary approach will benefit from synergies between hard and soft sciences: social sciences (policies, management, legal studies), urban planning and design, social sciences (policies, management, legal studies).
Part of the course will foresee workshops with experts and key figures in the field of governance, planning, sustainable development, innovation, and climate challenges (i.e., Marco Cremaschi from SciencesPo, Paris and Harini Nagendra from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)
Assessment Method
Evaluation method:
10% attendance and behaviour (5% attendance; 5% respect of social norms);
30% proactive participation to class (10% quality of booked individual reactions; 20% quality of spontaneous individual reactions)
40% project group-work (10% stakeholder mapping; 10% co-cycle; 10% stakeholder engagement and conflict resolution; 10% overall feasibility and coherence between the given challenge and the project)
20% final individual evaluation (individual discussion of the project group-work and adjustments)
Students that do not attend the course are invited to send an email to the teaching staff at least 45 days before the examination session starting date, to define the outline and methodology for the assignment and oral examination.
Thesis assignment criteria
Interest in the subject. Upon request sent to the professor, the thesis in particular in the forms of empirical and experimental thesis can be assigned to students, who show a particular and motivated interest in deepening the issues addressed by the course program.
Does the syllabus cover sustainability topics?
The program covers sustainability, climate change and planetary boundaries topics considered as lenses through which the course builds both classes and project-work
Week 1 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Grounding the course of Governance of Innovation and Climate Change:
- Models of planning and ecological planning
Market and planning are two different systems of regulation that are often understood as mutually exclusive. Instead, markets need regulation, and sometimes private actors provide regulatory tools; the other way around, planning systems regulate private actors but also require their participation. What is urban planning in particular, and which national European planning models? A rapid introduction to different urban planning models: comprehensive, strategic, and flexible is provided to elucidate the economic function of urban planning and its dependence on economic growth. The rise of concern with ecological planning goes hand in hand with the discussion on alternative planning models. Is ecological planning the return of an old passion? Experiences in France and Italy, options and perspectives.
Week 2 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Grounding the course of Governance of Innovation and Climate Change:
- Cities and Climate
The challenges of local policy in the face of a global crisis par excellence. Urban planning is turning increasingly towards the ecological transition; for instance, the urban metabolism approach is generalized in teaching. The class will introduce some preliminary definitions and theoretical elements, also insisting on the relationship with the history of urban planning. In addition, the class will focus on the practical impact of this turn on planning regulation and design: many approaches and debates have started, addressing issues as diverse as biodiversity, heat island regulation, soil permeability, nature-based solutions
Week 3 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Issues and perspectives of the circular economy
The economy of the cowboy or the spaceship? Already in 1966, K. E. Boulding contrasted the model of the cowboy -a metaphor for extractivist capitalism, who exhausts resources and moves the frontier elsewhere- to the spaceship that recycles every drop of water and oxygen. This is the founding metaphor of the circular economy: the planet is a spaceship, you can consume only what is on board, and you must recycle your garbage. The challenge was difficult: in 1971, Barry Commoner published a bestseller with the significant title Closing the Circle, but his presidential bid was a failure. The baby boomers, drugged by welfare, did not want to get passionate about ecology. Even today, growth policies ignore environmental dilemmas and drug the economy, scrapping cars and televisions, creating waste and new problems. Will cities succeed in changing the modes of production by adopting a circular model? The answer is all but easy. The class will examine the debate with particular reference to the Amsterdam doughnut model.
Week 4 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Ecological planning at the local level. An upside down model?
The IBA/Ruhr and competitive projects. Late development in planning introduced an open framework based upon the consultation of design and engineering firms and to a lesser extent of citizens. These consultations called for multidisciplinary teams to elaborate on the role of urban territories in an ecological transition, taking into account environmental and social and economic interests. This approach rises the question of the role of design aside from planning and governance. The class reviews a series of local experiences (Paris 2007, Moscow 2011, Geneva 2018, Luxembourg 2020).
Week 5 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Co-governance and experimentalism in a multiscalar perspective
The class will deepen the notion of co-governance (from the right to co-use to the right to co-manage and co-own assets), and provide practical examples of the applications of this paradigm within multiple scales. Students will recognize which is the role of the innovation ecosystem in identifying and implementing organizational patterns which are based on collaboration, participation and deliberation. These reflections will imply analyzing concrete cases of i.e., pacts of collaboration, participatory foundations, Public-private-science-social-people partnerships, community land trusts, innovation procurement.
Week 6 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Deepening Legal tools (Week 1/3):
- Innovation, globalization, and digitalization in property
This module will discuss whether the emergence of new types of tangible or intangible resources, or of innovative practices for the creation, allocation, and governance of assets, challenges established conventions of property. Consider the development of various forms of intellectual property, the conceptualization of certain governmental transfer payments as “new property,” or the current influx of interest in data and various digital assets like cryptocurrencies or non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Each such technological, commercial, or institutional novelty may call into question if the conceptual framework of property law, developed over centuries, can properly address contemporary reality.
This module will also address the impact of current processes of globalization - and counter-forces working against them - on the theory and practice of property law.
Amnon Lehavi, Property Law in a Globalizing World (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Introduction (pp. 1-8).
Juliet M. Moringiello & Christopher K. Odinet, “The Property Law of Tokens,” 74 Florida Law Review 607 (2022).
Week 7 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Deepening Legal tools (Week 2/3):
- Creativity, copyright, and the right of publicity in the digital age
Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC, O.J. L 130/92 (May 17, 2019).
Association of Art Museum Directors, Guidelines for the Use of Copyrighted Materials and Works of Art by Art Museums (2017) (https://aamd.org/sites/default/files/document/Guidelines%20for%20the%20Use%20of%20Copyrighted%20Materials.pdf).
Week 8 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Deepening Legal tools (Week 3/3):
From global databases to global norms? The future of cultural property law
Catherine Hickley, “Interpol Launches App to Identify Stolen Art - and it has Already been Used to Discover Loot,” The Art Newspaper (June 15, 2021).
Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly, “Every Act Collector Needs this Database. But is it Being Manipulated by Thieves?” Observer (Sept. 27, 2022).
Week 9 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Planetary crisis, forest governance (Week 1/4):
- Sustainability: A Historical Perspective
A brief history of the evolution of early influential ideas about Sustainability and how they shape our thoughts and actions today
Week 10 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Planetary crisis, forest governance (Week 2/4):
- Planetary boundaries of sustainability
This week, we will introduce key basic principles of ecological and earth systems science on sustainability - planetary boundaries
Week 11 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Planetary crisis, forest governance (Week 3/4):
- Sustainability – A Safe and Just Space for the global South
This week, we will introduce key basic principles of the social side of the system on sustainability – a safe and just space for humanity, and discuss sustainability from a global South perspective
Week 12 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
Planetary crisis, forest governance (Week 4/4):
- Sustainability as a social-ecological system
Understanding sustainability as a social-ecological system – and how sustainability innovations can do good or harm depending on how well the social and ecological components are integrated into the idea of the intervention or innovation
On May 4th students will be invited to actively contribute to a final workshop/seminar event on Climate Justice in Mediterranean Cities organized by Luiss researchers and international visiting Professors among which Harini Nagendra and Amnon Lehavi