Associated partners

The Agence Française de Développe­ment (AFD) is the oper­a­tor for France’s bilat­er­al devel­op­ment finance mech­a­nism. It is a pub­lic indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial insti­tu­tion with the sta­tus of spe­cial­ized finan­cial insti­tu­tion. AFD has been entrust­ed with a man­date by the French nation­al author­i­ties to con­tribute to eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment in its geo­graph­i­cal areas of oper­a­tion. It achieves this by financ­ing and sup­port­ing devel­op­ment projects and pro­grams, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the debate, research and dia­logue with the rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers. AFD owns a net­work of sev­en­ty agen­cies and rep­re­sen­ta­tions in devel­op­ing coun­tries and the French over­seas provinces. AFD is also respon­si­ble for the man­age­ment of the French Glob­al Envi­ron­ment Facil­i­ty, which cofi­nances projects that rec­on­cile envi­ron­ment and devel­op­ment. It is involved activ­i­ties that are cov­er­ing dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives of the glob­al bifur­ca­tion. E.g. “EnCom­muns” (a three year inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­gramme on com­mon­ing prac­tices and social and sol­i­dar­i­ty econ­o­my), a project on “Finan­cial Inno­va­tion and Reg­u­la­tion in the Per­spec­tive of the Ener­gy Tran­si­tion” or a reg­u­lar work­shop on stock-flow con­sis­tent (SFC) mod­el­ling. AFD brings hands-on expe­ri­ence for all WPs.

The Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Applied Sys­tems Analy­sis (IIASA) has been found­ed in 1972. It is an inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic insti­tute that con­ducts pol­i­cy-ori­ent­ed research into prob­lems that are too large or com­plex to be solved by a sin­gle coun­try or aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­pline. Prob­lems like cli­mate change that have a glob­al reach and can be resolved only by inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tive action; or prob­lems of com­mon con­cern that need to be addressed at both the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­el, such as ener­gy and cli­mate change, pop­u­la­tion aging, and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Fund­ed by research fund­ing agen­cies in Africa, the Amer­i­c­as, Asia, and Europe, IIASA is inde­pen­dent and uncon­strained by polit­i­cal or nation­al self-inter­est. The IIASA mis­sion is to pro­vide insights and guid­ance to pol­i­cy­mak­ers world­wide by find­ing solu­tions to glob­al and uni­ver­sal prob­lems through applied sys­tems analy­sis in order to improve human and social well­be­ing and pro­tect the envi­ron­ment. As such IIASA has a long track record in offer­ing sci­ence-based deci­sion sup­port. Near­ly 400 math­e­mati­cians, social sci­en­tists, nat­ur­al sci­en­tists, econ­o­mists, and engi­neers from 50countries car­ry out research at IIASA in Aus­tria, at the heart of Europe. These range from world-renowned scholars—six Nobel Prize lau­re­ates have worked at IIASA—to young sci­en­tists just embark­ing on their careers.

The Euro­pean Trade Union Insti­tute (ETUI) is the inde­pen­dent research and train­ing cen­tre of the Euro­pean Trade Union Con­fed­er­a­tion (ETUC). It is a non-prof­it inter­na­tion­al asso­ci­a­tion who received receives finan­cial sup­port from the Euro­pean Union. The ETUI con­ducts stud­ies on socio-eco­nom­ic top­ics and indus­tri­al rela­tions and mon­i­tors Euro­pean pol­i­cy devel­op­ments of strate­gic impor­tance for the world of labour. The over­all pur­pose of ETUC is to sup­port social dia­logue and pro­mote a social Europe. To sup­port, strength­en and stim­u­late the Euro­pean trade union move­ment, the ETUI pro­vides inde­pen­dent fact-based analy­sis and orig­i­nal research on issues of impor­tance for the social dimen­sion of Europe. The ETUI con­ducts stud­ies and research­es on macro­eco­nom­ics and social poli­cies in Europe, indus­tri­al rela­tions and health and safe­ty at work in Europe. It cre­ates bridges between the aca­d­e­m­ic sphere, the world of research and the trade union move­ment in order to encour­age inde­pen­dent research on top­ics of deci­sive rel­e­vance to the world of labour. It pro­vides the ETUC and its affil­i­ates with pro­grammes and exchanges that strength­en the Euro­pean trade union iden­ti­ty. The ETUI pro­vides tech­ni­cal assis­tance in the field of health and safe­ty with a view to achiev­ing a high lev­el of occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty pro­tec­tion for work­ers through­out Europe. ETUI brings with­in EPOG-DN its exper­tise on labour.

The Inter­con­ti­nen­tal net­work for the pro­mo­tion of social sol­i­dar­i­ty econ­o­my (RIPESS) is the inter­con­ti­nen­tal net­work that coor­di­nates the pro­mo­tion of social sol­i­dar­i­ty econ­o­my (SSE) prac­tices, poli­cies and cul­ture around the world, through its mem­ber net­works and organ­i­sa­tions. The inher­ent nature of RIPESS includes the objec­tive of con­tribut­ing to sys­temic, trans­for­ma­tive change. It does this by demon­strat­ing how much SSE con­tributes in terms of real answers at local lev­el to the exist­ing sys­tem that is clear­ly show­ing its lim­its. RIPESS mem­bers believe in the impor­tance of the glob­al­i­sa­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty, and the abil­i­ty to build and strength­en an econ­o­my that places peo­ple and plan­et at the cen­tre of its activ­i­ties. RIPESS Europe – is the Euro­pean con­ti­nen­tal net­work of the RIPESS inter­con­ti­nen­tal net­work. It includes 40 sec­to­r­i­al, nation­al and inter-sec­to­r­i­al net­works in 16 coun­tries. The net­work gath­ers thou­sands of SSE stake­hold­ers and orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean lev­el, facil­i­tat­ing net­work inter-coop­er­a­tion, aware­ness rais­ing, peer-train­ing and com­mon advo­ca­cy. The Euro­pean team is a coor­di­na­tion of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the net­works and is not dis­trib­uted in sev­er­al coun­tries. At the aca­d­e­m­ic lev­el, there are con­nec­tions with many uni­ver­si­ties who have Master’s or PhD pro­grammes on SSE, also through the RIPESS (the inter-uni­ver­si­ty net­work pro­mot­ing SSE), as well as with stu­dent organ­i­sa­tions. RIPESS allows EPOG-DN to access firms and organ­i­sa­tions world­wide cov­er­ing all the dimen­sions of the pro­gramme but with the per­spec­tive of the SSE.

The City of Paris (PARIS) is at the core of a vast met­ro­pol­i­tan area with a pop­u­la­tion of 11 mil­lion inhab­i­tants, con­tend­ing with sig­nif­i­cant urban den­si­ty and the chal­lenges posed by the cli­mate cri­sis. The lat­ter par­tic­u­lar­ly impacts the city dur­ing the sum­mer months, giv­ing rise to urban heat islands. In response to these envi­ron­men­tal issues, Paris has been active­ly imple­ment­ing an ambi­tious Ener­gy and Cli­mate Plan since 2018, com­ple­ment­ed by a Bio­di­ver­si­ty Plan and a strate­gic Resilience City Action Plan. This com­pre­hen­sive ini­tia­tive involves not only the City itself but also engages indus­tri­al and insti­tu­tion­al part­ners, small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es (SMEs), research cen­tres, non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions (NGOs), as well as cit­i­zens and users. The Munic­i­pal­i­ty pos­sess­es exten­sive expe­ri­ence and resources, enabling it to fos­ter syn­er­gy among these diverse stake­hold­ers to attain shared goals in cli­mate change adap­ta­tion. One notable under­tak­ing ini­ti­at­ed by the City of Paris in 2018 is the “Oasis” school­yards project, trans­form­ing them into gar­dens with a spe­cif­ic focus on refor­esta­tion and cool­ing mea­sures. These trans­formed spaces incor­po­rate ped­a­gog­i­cal play areas, pro­mot­ing tran­quil­i­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty, and are open to the pub­lic. With over 100 “Oasis” school­yards estab­lished by 2022, Paris remains com­mit­ted to advanc­ing this pro­gram in the com­ing years, aim­ing to enhance gov­er­nance, imple­men­ta­tion, and man­age­ment through var­i­ous assess­ments and feed­back mechanisms.

The Secré­tari­at général pour la plan­i­fi­ca­tion écologique (SGPE) was estab­lished on Sep­tem­ber 1, 2022, as a new gov­ern­ment agency oper­at­ing under the direct author­i­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter. It aims at coor­di­nat­ing and spear­head­ing, at the high­est lev­el of the gov­ern­ment, France’s nation­al effort for the eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion. It cur­rent­ly employs 15 per­sons com­ing from a diver­si­ty of back­grounds and works with all min­istries, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and exter­nal part­ners (incl. acad­e­mia, civ­il soci­ety, local gov­ern­ments…) engaged in eco­log­i­cal transition.