ModelGIGS, 2009 - 2011

Governance  and  institutions  are  increasingly  becoming  a  central  concern  within  the  more quantitatively oriented modelling and scenarios  community. In  order  to understand  the  effectiveness of  institutions  in steering  society and the  international system at  large  towards sustainability, a number of approaches have been developed  within  International  Relations  and  global  environmental  governance  research,  that potentially can be  integrated  into  the on-going  attempts  to  model  political  developments  and  interventions. The  quest  for  integration  of  social  science  research  into  more formalized  methodologies  such  as  modelling,  computer simulation and scenario development  represents  one  of  the  cutting-edge  research  frontiers in sustainability politics.  The  research  project  involves  a  two-step  methodology,  which  is  based  on  the  idea  of institutional  diagnostics. In  the  first  step,  the key  features  of  the  issue  and  the  issue-area will be identified as clearly and sharply as possible. The  second  step deals  with  defining the  nature  of  the  institutional  arrangements needed  to mitigate the problem  in question or to  find ways  to  adapt  to  its  impacts. The  key challenge  is  to  formalize  the  aforementioned  qualitative  factors,  through  quantitative  techniques, such as computer based modelling.

Contact information: Dr. P.H. Pattberg 

W-11-005 PBL_Background_10June2011_FINAL.pdf

W-11-003 PBL_Biodiversity_10June2011_FINAL.pdf