Acronym: RETOOL
Title: Strengthening democratic governance for climate transitions
Call: HORIZON-CL2-2023-DEMOCRACY-01
EU nr: 101132661
Period: 1/2/2024-31/1/2027
Total budget: € 2,606,193.75
VUB budget: €407,750.00
Contact: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Oberthür
ABSTRACT:
The overall goal of the RETOOL project is to advance our understanding of how to address the twin challenges of responding to the climate imperative while strengthening and reinvigorating democratic governance. The project has four overarching objectives: (i) To deepen our understanding of the relationship between democratic governance and the climate imperative by developing a novel analytical framework and creating new empirical underpinnings, including important new open-access datasets; (ii) To understand how a variety of democratic institutions across Europe are responding to the climate challenge, including learning lessons from history and studying new and innovative democratic practices; (iii) To contribute to reinvigorating democratic governance in Europe by developing and synthesising new knowledge and insights on climate democracy, and presenting them in a range of high-impact formats; and (iv) To serve as a bridge between academic research on climate democracy innovations and policymakers and practitioners, as well as civil society and the wider public. RETOOL brings together an international and interdisciplinary consortium, with partners from Western Europe (Ireland, UK, Belgium, Austria), Northern Europe (Finland), Eastern Europe (Estonia), and Southern Europe (Italy, Greece), combining expertise in political science, political sociology, deliberative democracy, environmental law, European studies, and public administration. The consortium includes a democracy practitioner foundation (DDF), and all partners are closely associated with practitioner and civil society networks and involved in hands-on activities. RETOOL will be undertaken by a mature, settled consortium that has significant experience of working together, with six of our nine partners core members of the EU-funded Jean Monnet Network GreenDeal-NET.
AIM (WHAT):
The main ambition of the RETOOL project is to advance our understanding of how to address the twin challenges of responding to the climate imperative along with strengthening and reinvigorating democratic governance. Concretely, the project objectives are: (i) to foster understanding of the relationship between democratic governance and the climate imperative; (ii) to investigate the response of EU democratic institutions to the climate challenge; (iii) to reinvigorate democratic governance in Europe; and (iv) to act as a bridge between academic research on climate democracy innovations and policymakers and practitioners, as well as civil society and the wider public.
METHODOLOGY (HOW):
To achieve its ambition, the RETOOL consortium will rely on a robust and interdisciplinary analytical framework having two dimensions, namely “Key characteristics of climate democracy” and “Factors that enable or inhibit innovation in democratic governance”. After developing the analytical framework, the consortium will carry out systematic and innovative research on climate democracy, analyse and synthesise the data, and then communicate the results to the different stakeholders (policymakers, researchers, democracy practitioners, civil society and citizens). Throughout the project, the consortium will also aim to capture and synthesise learnings from diverse international and EU national contexts, using a case selection strategy with climate democracy datasets, public opinion surveys, and case study analyses.
IMPACT (WHY):
RETOOL will make multiple significant scientific and societal contributions by: (i) enhancing capacity in democratic governance; (ii) increasing citizen mobilization; (iii) producing actionable policy recommendations; and (iv) increasing international cooperation on climate democracy. Overall, RETOOL will produce actionable knowledge and insights to enhance representation, participation, openness, inclusivity, pluralism, tolerance, the effectiveness of public policy, non-discrimination, civic engagement, the protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law in the governance of climate transitions.