In January 2020, Greece, the Republic of Cyprus and Israel signed an agreement to construct the EastMed pipeline, a 1900-kilometer undersea pipeline designed to transport gas from the offshore deposits in the Leviathan field of the southeastern Mediterranean to continental Europe. Designed as Project of Common Interest (PCI) by European Commission since 2013, this pipeline aims to diversify the EU’s energy source, potentially reducing reliance on Russian gas. While progress had stalled, the Russian invasion of Ukraine reignited hopes for its construction. Nonetheless, the United States raised doubts about its viability and distanced itself from what it reportedly labeled a “contentious energy scheme”. Our report aims to assess the prospects of the EastMed pipeline, drawing insights from the energy security scenario analysis by the World Energy Council, Shell, and the Clingendael Institute. Beginning with background information on the project’s geological aspects, EU-driven regulatory framework, key stakeholders, and estimated costs, we’ll craft scenarios around three central storylines: 1) Market and Institutions, focusing on stable geopolitics and regional cooperation, 2) Regions and Empires, emphasizing Geopolitical Tensions, and, 3) Environmental Challenges.
This chapter presents Critical Policy Discourse Analysis (CPDA) which merges critical discourse analysis (CDA) with critical policy studies (CPS). CPDA engages with a discursive analysis of a policy problem, generally drawing on critical discourse analysis for its methodology, in this case Text Oriented Discourse Analysis (TODA). The research addresses the problem of complexity reduction in the process of policy-making and illustrates this with an analysis of the UN Agenda “Transforming the World, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which introduces the sustainable development goals (SDGs). It presents the reader with a detailed example of how to perform a TODA research. It indeed reveals mechanisms of policy reduction such as decontextualization, singularization, a limited spatio-temporal frame reduced to the timespan of the UN. It discusses the potential consequences of this for the effectivity of the SDGs and presents alternative theories and voices that do capture the complexity of real life events. The final section suggests further developments in CPDA and advocates bringing complexity to the fore.
"Sociologist of education Annette Lareau is renowned in her field for her compassionate ethnographic work and the insightful ideas she's able to draw from it. With Listening to People, she has given us an extremely practical guide to doing the kind of work she has been celebrated for. Lareau covers just about everything a social scientist needs to know--formulating a topic and honing it down to a good research question, obtaining IRB approval, finding a site and making introductions, conducting high-quality interviews and participant--observation, taking good notes and writing them up later, analyzing the data, and best of all, making clear how much the data analysis and the writing are part of the same process. Her tone throughout is about as straightforward as it gets, and she very generously shares stories of her own mistakes, missteps, and anxieties. Written for students and scholars in sociology, education, communications, social work, and possibly political science, anthropology, and related fields, the book will be an indispensable guide for graduate students and faculty in the social sciences (broadly conceived), and is even suitable for undergraduates"-- Provided by publisher.
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Designing cities that are socially sustainable has been a significant challenge until today. Lately, European Commission’s research agenda of Industy 5.0 has prioritised a sustainable, human-centric and resilient development over merely pursuing efficiency and productivity in societal transitions. The focus has been on searching for sustainable solutions to societal challenges, engaging part of the design industry. In architecture and urban design, whose common goal is to create a condition for human life, much effort was put into elevating the engineering process of physical space, making it more efficient. However, the natural process of social evolution has not been given priority in urban and architectural research on sustainable design. STEPS stems from the common interest of the project partners in accessible, diverse, and progressive public spaces, which is vital to socially sustainable urban development. The primary challenge lies in how to synthesise the standardised sustainable design techniques with unique social values of public space, propelling a transition from technical sustainability to social sustainability. Although a large number of social-oriented studies in urban design have been published in the academic domain, principles and guidelines that can be applied to practice are large missing. How can we generate operative principles guiding public space analysis and design to explore and achieve the social condition of sustainability, developing transferable ways of utilising research knowledge in design? STEPS will develop a design catalogue with operative principles guiding public space analysis and design. This will help designers apply cross-domain knowledge of social sustainability in practice.
Carboxylated cellulose is an important product on the market, and one of the most well-known examples is carboxymethylcellulose (CMC). However, CMC is prepared by modification of cellulose with the extremely hazardous compound monochloracetic acid. In this project, we want to make a carboxylated cellulose that is a functional equivalent for CMC using a greener process with renewable raw materials derived from levulinic acid. Processes to achieve cellulose with a low and a high carboxylation degree will be designed.
In the Netherlands approximately 2 million inhabitants have one or more disabilities. However, just like most people they like to travel and go on holiday.In this project we have explored the customer journey of people with disabilities and their families to understand their challenges and solutions (in preparing) to travel. To get an understanding what ‘all-inclusive’ tourism would mean, this included an analysis of information needs and booking behavior; traveling by train, airplane, boat or car; organizing medical care and; the design of hotels and other accommodations. The outcomes were presented to members of ANVR and NBAV to help them design tourism and hospitality experiences or all.
