ERC Advanced Grant GAPS – Global Assessment of Public Participation in Sustainability Governance: Performance, Justice and Democracy

~ Jens Newig ~ Leave a comment

The European Research Council (ERC) will fund a five-year Advanced Grant project on the role of public participation in sustainability governance in all world regions. We will soon be recruiting the full team: one postdoctoral and four doctoral researchers (see below under ‘Open positions’).

Public participation has become a standard part of sustainability governance worldwide – from citizens’ assemblies and participatory budgeting to stakeholder consultations, and across democratic and non-democratic systems alike. Participatory decision-making is expected to improve environmental decisions, strengthen democratic legitimacy, and give marginalised groups a voice. However, we lack sound knowledge on whether participation actually delivers on these goals. The evidence is scattered across thousands of individual case studies in different languages, disciplines and outlets, each usually limited to one format, sector or region.

Public participation is now a global phenomenon – well beyond Western democracies where most of it was first studied and theorised. But we do not know whether models developed there travel – or whether political regime, level of development and culture fundamentally change how participation ‘works’. Comparative research has so far mostly stopped at single regions or sectors, leaving the cross-regional patterns, and the prevailing North–South and democratic–authoritarian assumptions, largely untested.

What GAPS will do

The project plans to assemble and analyse virtually all documented cases of public participation in sustainability governance for which scholarly publications are available – from all world regions and across the past fifty years, coded into one common framework. The aim is to find patterns on which forms of participation improve sustainability, strengthen democracy and advance justice – and how this varies across political systems, levels of development and cultures.

GAPS will use the case survey method, which our group has applied and tested in 300+ cases of participatory environmental decision-making in Western democracies (EDGE project), and scale it to thousands of case studies worldwide, supported by Large Language Models (LLMs) for coding, benchmarked against human coding.

Simplified Conceptual model, including exemplary items to assess.

To address the global challenge, GAPS will pursue a more nuanced approach than is often taken: Instead of assuming a divide between North and South, democratic and authoritarian, or West and East, GAPS treats human development, regimte type and culture as continuous variables and matches each case to country-level data from available global databases on human development (HDI), liberal democracy (V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index), and cultural orientation (World Values Survey).

The three context dimensions used to place each case. Shading shows human development (HDI) and liberal democracy (V-Dem LDI); diagonal hatching marks cultural orientation from the World Values Survey, self-expression (“Western”) against survival (“Eastern”) values. Map created with Claude.AI.

To allow for causal analysis, we will combine statistical analysis, including path models to uncover mechanism variables and multi-level models to account for the nested case–country structure, with Large-N Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and causal process tracing on selected cases.

The research team, based at Leuphana University Lüneburg, will collaborate closely with Prof. Nicolas W. Jager at TU Berlin.

Open positions

We will be hiring one postdoctoral and four doctoral researchers, all at the Institute of Sustainability Governance (one PhD jointly with TU Berlin at Nicolas Jager’s group). Each PhD addresses one component of the overall research programme; the postdoc leads the methodological and synthesis work and helps coordinate the project. All team members will have strong methodological experience.

Postdoc · 100% · 5 years – Participation in sustainability governance and AI-assisted comparison. Co-leads the AI-assisted case database and quality assurance, supports qualitative and quantitative PhD analyses, leads synthesis and theory-building.

PhD · 75% · 4 years –  Participation and sustainability performance. Whether and how participation produces better environmental decisions, across climate, biodiversity, pollution and resource management.

PhD · 75% · 4 years – Participation, democracy and justice. When participation strengthens democracy and legitimacy, and includes marginalised groups in fairer procedures and outcomes.

PhD · 75% · 4 years – Global patterns of participation in sustainability governance. How political, developmental and cultural contexts shape participatory designs and their effects; carries the country-level data and multi-level analysis.

PhD · 75% · 4 years · with TU Berlin – Participation in environmental impact assessments. Comparing more and less participatory environmental impact assessments worldwide. Co-supervised by Prof. Nicolas W. Jager, working in Berlin and Lüneburg.

All positions start 1 October 2026. The application deadline is 10 August 2026, and interviews are expected to take place on 17–21 August 2026, with all decisions finalised by 28 August 2026. The individual calls (issued soon) will specify the profile and required documents for every position. For questions about the project and the positions (but not about individual eligibility), please contact jens.newig@leuphana.de.

Special Issue on Knowledge Cumulation in Environmental Governance

~ Jens Newig ~ Leave a comment

By Michael Rose and Jens Newig

Over the past years, we’ve watched environmental governance research expand at impressive speed. New case studies, new concepts, new methods — the field is vibrant. Yet one question has kept nagging at us: Are we actually building knowledge, or are we sometimes also talking past each other?

This simple question ultimately motivated a group of scholars from the Earth System Governance taskforce on Knowledge Cumulation to work on a special issues, which is now published with Environmental Policy and Governance.

Environmental governance research is wonderfully diverse, but that diversity also makes it difficult to connect findings across contexts. Too often, insights remain isolated: a promising mechanism here, an interesting participatory process there — but without linking back to previous work, without clarifying whether what we’ve learned travels, under which conditions, and with what implications. If we want the field to mature — and to be genuinely useful for policymakers and practitioners — we need to become more deliberate about how we build on each other’s work.

The contributions in this issue take up this challenge from different angles. Some examine where cumulation is already happening (and where it isn’t). Others propose ways to measure or strengthen cumulation — through comparative designs, transparent data practices, systematic reviews, or conceptual clarification. Still others reflect critically on whether a stronger push for cumulation risks narrowing the field or crowding out diverse ways of knowing. Taken together, they open up a conversation we believe the field has long needed.

Our hope is that this special issue sparks more reflection — and more intentionality — in how we, as a research community, create knowledge that genuinely adds up. Not by forcing uniformity, but by building bridges: across cases, disciplines, methods, and perspectives. We as guest editors – Michael Rose, Jens Newig, Sina Leipold – invite you to explore the issue, engage with its arguments, and join the conversation on what cumulative knowledge in environmental governance could and should look like.

This way to the Special Issue page: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1002/(ISSN)1756-9338.knowledge-cumulation-environmental.

Go-Chains Project Update

~ francabuelow ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a little quiet on our channels – but behind the scenes, we’ve been hard at work! Our research cluster on the sustainability governance of global value chains officially got underway last year, supported by the Volkswagen Stiftung. Since then, our team has grown, with the final PhD researcher joining us in April.

In May, we hosted a one-day workshop to kick things off, spotlighting our brilliant Early Career Researchers and their exciting ideas for the coming four years. With a strong focus on governance, due diligence, and their links to sustainability and human rights, the day was full of inspiration (and great snacks). We explored synergies across our projects and shared ideas for engaging with practitioners, policymakers, and fellow researchers.

Our Go-Chains Team, photo by Christopher Krit Venzky-Stalling.

Some of our team members had the pleasure to present to be in Berlin for the ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance conference at the Hertie School, where we presented joint research by Henrike Jost, Andrea Lenschow, Jens Newig, Jelto Makris, Michel Ortland, and Franca Bülow. Our project synthesises and compares research on the effects of mandatory due diligence regulation using a case survey approach. We presented a bird’s-eye view of the current research landscape and had the chance to discuss our findings in two thought-provoking panels on due diligence effects, chaired by Janina Grabs and Sophia Carodenuto, alongside a brilliant group of female scholars.

Henrike Jost, Franca Bülow, Jelto Makris and Michel Ortland at the Hertie School – just after two inspiring panels on due diligence regulation.

Just yesterday, we met with our advisory board to share a high-level overview of our plans and begin shaping collaborative pathways and mentoring structures.

Nora Grosse presenting her PhD project; Photo by Christopher Krit Venzky-Stalling.
Franca snapping a photo of Sofiya Pohursky’s presentation; Photo by Christopher Krit Venzky-Stalling.

We’re also putting the final touches on our website – stay tuned for introductions to our team, their projects as well as information on due diligence regulation! In the meantime, follow us on LinkedIn at @Research Cluster GoChains.


Let’s connect – get in touch to talk all things governance, due diligence, and sustainability!

#DueDiligence #RegulatoryGovernance #SustainabilityGovernance #GlobalValueChains #VolkswagenStiftung #GOvernanceResearch #MandatoryDueDiligence #ECPR2025 #HertieSchool #AcademicCollaboration #PolicyResearch #SupplyChainRegulation

AI Tools in Sustainability Research: Insights from Our Team Retreat

~ Clara Baschant ~ Leave a comment

At our recent research retreat, we shared our experiences of AI tools for literature search, writing, and analysis. Since we are now reporting on AI’s usefulness as a ‘research assistant’, we also used ChatGPT to help draft this post— making it a practical experiment in itself!

🔍 Smarter Literature Searches: Elicit & Consensus

We’ve used these AI-powered search engines to discover academic papers.

  • Elicit delivers structured insights, acting like a mini meta-analysis (and very recently even offering systematic reviews in paid versions).
  • Consensus provides a broader mix of sources, including non-academic content.
  • Our observation: They return different results for the same query, so cross-checking is valuable. We’re also still testing how Elicit performs when conducting systematic reviews.

🎨 Visualizing Ideas: Napkin

Napkin turns text into quick conceptual diagrams—perfect for research presentations or proposal sketches. We all enjoyed playing with it, and would recommend to just give its free version a go.

🕸️ Mapping Research: Research Rabbit

This tool creates citation networks, helping to identify key papers and connections. However, it leans on older publications, so it’s best for field overviews rather than cutting-edge research. You can tailor it a bit more when uploading your own collection and asking it to add suggestions for similar publications. However, we found the interface and visualization of the citation networks a little overwhelming at first.

🤖 ChatGPT & Other AI Assistants

ChatGPT remains a go-to tool, now with improved accuracy. Key uses include:

  • Summarizing and analyzing uploaded papers.
  • Generating feedback in a peer review style.
  • Assisting with writing, though data privacy remains a concern.

Other notable tools include Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Aleph Alpha, although we have not used those extensively in our research

✍️ Writing Support: DeepL Write

Great for refining academic writing and maintaining consistent terminology, especially in multilingual work.

🎙️ Transcription Aids: Otter, Firefly & Dragon NaturallySpeaking

These AI-powered tools help transcribe interviews but still struggle with accents and poor audio quality. If interviewees agree, they can be a great time saver.

⚠️ Data Protection & Regulatory Uncertainty

A major challenge remains: university regulations on AI tools vary, creating uncertainty for researchers and students who collaborate across institutions. Here, we’ve used Napkin to outline our concerns and potential solutions when using AI tools. What do you think of the graphics?

Final Thoughts

AI isn’t a magic fix, but it can be a powerful research ally when used thoughtfully. There are so many social media accounts that introduce a variety of AI – we’ve decided to test a few of those in the coming months, so stay tuned for more discussions on AI and its usefulness for research.

What AI tools have you found useful in (sustainability) research? What camp are you on: team yay or nay AI? Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments.

Two PhD positions on Sustainability Policy and Governance of Global Value Chains

~ Jens Newig ~ Leave a comment

By Jens Newig

As part of a Lower Saxony project consortium on the sustainability governance of global supply chains, two political science-oriented doctoral positions in the field of “Sustainability Policy and Governance of Global Value Chains (GVC)” are being advertised at the professorships of Andrea Lenschow (Osnabrück) and Jens Newig (Lüneburg):

A short project introduction is available here.

Deadline for applications is September 30, 2024.

We look forward to interesting appliations!

New Collaborative Project on the Sustainability Governance of Global Value Chains

~ Jens Newig ~ Leave a comment

By Jens Newig

Updated on 4 July 2024.

The global demand for raw materials and agricultural products has led to unsustainable working conditions and environmental impacts, especially in countries of the Global South. Efforts to address these issues have largely relied on voluntary certification and auditing by businesses, but since the mid-2010s, countries have implemented binding regulations such as France’s 2017 Loi de Vigilance, Germany’s 2023 Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, with their effects still largely unexplored.

A new collaborative project, funded by the VolkswagenFoundation and the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture, will explore effects, potentials, and limitations of sustainability governance in global value chains (GVC). Leuphana University Lüneburg (lead) and Osnabrück University (co-lead) are collaborating with Oldenburg University and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA).

Existing private and public approaches to the sustainability governance of GVCs face significant challenges. The geographic distance of many GVCs often leads to a lack of knowledge among Global North actors regarding the socio-economic, cultural, and ecological impacts at production sites in the Global South. Additionally, current information management systems fail to provide adequate data for making supply chains more sustainable, and the concept of “telecoupling” highlights the complexity of adapting international regulations to local conditions. Furthermore, GVCs are characterized by divergent interests and power asymmetries, making transparency and traceability essential yet difficult to achieve. Compliance with laws and standards remains challenging, particularly in regions with weak state capacities, necessitating monitoring, verification, sanctions, and capacity-building measures.

To explore these complex issues, the collaborative project takes a multi-perspective approach encompassing public governance (political and legal aspects), corporate governance (company networks and their practices), and regional perspectives (focusing on the Global South). The project will utilize empirical case studies in sectors crucial to Lower Saxony, such as agricultural raw materials for food production and minerals for automotive manufacturing and renewable energy production.

Key features of the research cluster include:

  1. Interdisciplinary integration of political, legal, economic, socio-technical, and geographical perspectives.
  2. Integration of perspectives from both the Global North and South.
  3. An empirical multi-sector comparison of GVCs relevant to Lower Saxony.

This comprehensive approach seeks to promote a deep understanding of how public regulations, corporate sustainability management, and technological solutions can drive the desired transformations along GVCs, ultimately contributing to sustainable global development.

In the months to come, two post-doc positions and nine PhD positions will be advertised across the collaborative project.

New Masters programme on Sustainability Governance and Law

~ Jens Newig ~ Leave a comment

By Jens Newig

Starting this fall, Leuphana University is offering a new Master’s programme entitled ‘Sustainability Science: Governance and Law’, as part of a set of four new Master’s programmes that will replace the existing Master of Sustainability Science.

Unique in the German university landscape, the new Master’s programme combines a strong research orientation with inter- and transdisciplinary projects.

“The Sustainability Science: Governance and Law (M.A.) programme deals with social and political structures: What are good and legitimate decision-making processes? What role does democracy play – especially from a global perspective? What forms of participation exist? Who has to decide what at what level? Certain decisions have to be made at national or even international level, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, which affects the entire globe. Which actors have to be involved? What are effective policy instruments? Our graduates can later join public administration, from local authorities to international organisations. However, NGOs or advisory boards are also an option. We have an academic degree programme that is geared towards practice. We want our graduates to be ambassadors of scientific thinking,” explains Prof Dr Jens Newig, Professor of Governance and Sustainability.

Further information on the programme: https://www.leuphana.de/en/graduate-school/masters-programmes/sustainability-science-governance-and-law.html.

Deadline for applications is June 1st.

The Independent Guardian, the Advisory/Coordination Body, and the Stakeholder Council

~ Michael Rose ~ Leave a comment

Three Types of Institutional Innovations Show How to Represent Future Generations in Political Decision-Making Today

By Michael Rose

The choices we make in politics today, whether regarding biodiversity loss, climate change, or social security systems, hold significant repercussions for the well-being of future (i.e., yet unborn) generations. The fact that future generations have no voice today may contribute to the governance failures prevalent in these realms and others. From a democratic perspective, the interests of all affected by political decisions should be considered in their formulation. Moreover, the guiding principle of sustainable development asks us to consider the needs of future generations alongside those of the present. But how could we give a voice to people who do not yet exist?

The German Bundestag hosts the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development, a member of the Network of Institutions for Future Generations (Photo: Robert Diam).

Several democracies have responded to this challenge by establishing specialized institutions. For instance, in 1993, the Finnish Parliament formed the Committee for the Future. Shortly thereafter, in 1995, Canada established the Commissioner for Environment and Sustainable Development. Both institutions remain active today. From 2001 to 2005, the Israeli Knesset had a Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations. Following suit, in 2008, the Hungarian Parliament introduced an Ombudsman for Future Generations, although this position was later downgraded by the Orbán Government in 2012. Notably, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales stands out as a prominent example of how democracies evolve their institutional frameworks to consider future generations today.

Twenty-five institutions in 17 democracies

In my article “Institutional Proxy Representatives of Future Generations: A Comparative Analysis of Types and Design Features”, I formulated the notion of institutional proxy representation of future generations to provide a theoretical foundation for these institutional advancements. Furthermore, I applied this concept to build a comprehensive inventory of empirical instances of institutional proxy representation across democracies worldwide. Through this analysis, I identified 25 institutions for future generations – or “proxies” – in 17 democracies.

The proxies are grouped into three types, based on the rationale of selecting their members: The expertise-driven independent guardian (type I), the political or administrative advisory or coordination body (type II), and the sustainability stakeholder council or commission (type III). For each proxy (and proxy type), I assessed how it is designed, and how this translates into its formal capacity to influence political decision-making.

Three types

Type I proxies – the independent guardians – typically comprise experts who are not part of government or parliament. This allows them to consider the needs of future generations from a professional point of view with minimal political interference. These proxies often have robust legal foundations and wield specific political instruments usually not found in other proxy types, such, legal rights of action, a suspensive veto, ombudsperson functions, legislative proposals, and auditing, including independent investigation rights. Type I includes all the strongest, but also some of the weakest proxies examined in this study. The strongest ones can not only voice the interests of future generations, but can also make sure they are heard by parliament or government. However, the survival rate of type I proxies is rather low.

Type II proxies – the political or administrative advisory or coordination bodies – are, to a certain extent, the counter-model to type I. They are not independent, but internal parts of the political system, comprising either Members of Parliament or members of the governmental departments. Operating on a predominantly weak legal footing, they provide internal advisory, coordination, and sometimes monitoring services to enhance political decision-making from within, with a view toward benefitting future generations. They only have limited political instruments at their disposal and can access only few stages of the policy cycle, which makes them heavily reliant on good working relationships with other parts of parliament and government.

Type III proxies – the sustainability stakeholder councils or committees – are designated parts of the sustainability governance architecture of their host countries. Embracing the principles of functional representation and participation, members are appointed from different sectors of society to broaden societal outreach, provide general advice and specific policy recommendations to the government, and oftentimes monitor and review sustainability-related developments. While they lack particularly strong or weak formal capacities to influence political decision-making, they show the highest survival rate among the three types, possibly attributable to their integration across multiple sectors.

Design features

I assessed each proxy to determine the legal basis upon which it was established, the political instruments it was granted, and the branches of government and stages of the policy cycle it could engage with through these instruments. This figure shows the distribution of political instruments across proxies and types. Proxies were created with these instruments to allow them to monitor and influence political decision-making and reach out to society. To learn more about proxies’ access to branches of government and phases of the policy cycle, as well as their legal bases and total formal capacity to influence political decision-making, please scroll through the slideshow.

Political instruments | Access to stages of the policy cycle | Access to branches of government | Legal basis | Total formal capacity to influence political decision-making

A multifaceted landscape of institutionalized voices of future generations

In general, the diverse and dynamic array of proxies, although relatively small in number, provides manifold examples of institutional innovations illustrating how the interests of future generations can be considered in political decision-making. However, while some of these proxies can act as watchdogs with teeth when ignored, many seem to represent rather cosmetic than far-reaching reforms of the democratic decision-making process. Therefore, it is important not to place excessive expectations on these proxies in terms of effecting significant policy changes to the benefit of future generations. For more detailed and inspirational results, download the full study here.

Reference
Rose, Michael (2024): Institutional Proxy Representatives of Future Generations: A Comparative Analysis of Types and Design Features, in: Politics and Governance 12, Art. 7746 (21 pages). DOI: 10.17645/pag.7745

How I handled missing data in a meta-analysis of case studies

~ Shahana Bilalova ~ Leave a comment

By Shahana Bilalova

As researchers, we frequently find ourselves delving deeply into the body of scientific literature in an effort to find the answers to the questions we have. Recently, I conducted a case survey, which is a kind of meta-analysis that synthesizes qualitative case narratives in published literature. During this process, coping with missing data became both a challenging and insightful journey, which led me to take a strategic approach.

With an aim of understanding how well water governance systems function in addressing various water-related issues, my goal was very clear: to compile data from empirical studies in our sample. I was using cases that we identified systematically at the beginning of our project. These cases were from one of the two problem contexts (in our paper termed problématiques), namely “groundwater exploitation in agriculture” and “surface water pollution”. While in our previous studies, we had clustered cases into five problématiques, I selected the mentioned two problématiques, as they combined a large share of cases and represented diverse natures of problem contexts.

My initial plan was straightforward: to extract data for each case from the original articles in our sample. However, it did not go as planned, and I ran into a problem that all researchers face: incomplete data. Only 12% of cases (10 out of 86 cases) provided complete data. Before addressing the missing data, with careful consideration, I strategically chose 20 cases for each problématiques—40 being the minimum number necessary for QCA in our study—selecting those with the most complete data. Considering the amount of time and resources needed to complete the missing data, this stage was necessary. I then looked into other innovative ways to filling these gaps.

(1) Tapping into expert insight: the first strategy

My first idea was to get in touch with the main authors of the articles, considering their knowledge of the case. This approach was successful in some cases, so I gathered data for another 10 out of 40 cases (33% of the missing information). Authors shared their expert knowledge through surveys, helping with the missing information. Yet, some authors did not respond at all, and with articles published decades ago, authors often struggled to recall details about the cases. Additionally, one of the cases for which we received an author survey still had one missing piece of information.

(2) The hunt for alternative sources: grey or academic literature

As a response to the situation, I delved into the literature, both grey and academic, searching for alternative sources to to fill the remaining missing information. The goal was to identify further publications on the given cases that could help with the missing data. I included either literature published within +/- 5 years of the original article’s publishing date or publications that studied governance within the timeframe of the original article. Although this step required a close look, it was often successful in finding the information I was looking for. As a result, I was able to fill in 69% of the missing information (completing information for 16 cases).

(3) The third strategy: replacement cases

However, all these steps still left some cases with missing data. As a last step, I took a pragmatic approach—replacing those remaining 5 cases with still incomplete data with others from our sample that shared the same problématique and contained more complete data compared to the cases in the whole sample. After replacing the cases, I filled in the missing information for these new cases using the alternative sources.

In conclusion…

Working with the missing information in a case survey demands flexibility, creativity, and perseverance. Although reaching out to authors, looking into alternative sources, and using replacement cases aren’t guaranteed solutions, they are effective ways to get around the problems caused by gaps in the data. During this process, I have come to appreciate research’s dynamic nature, where adaptability is just as important as the data itself. Of course, the important thing is that we are transparent with it. Even though handling missing data might be challenging and difficult at times, we should remember that each missing piece presents an opportunity to improve our problem-solving abilities.