European transnational governance for sustainable development

Project description:

European Transnational Governance for Sustainable Development – SUSTAIN aims to promote EU studies through a new combination of open teaching, virtual classroom, co-creative public debates, action research and policy recommendations. It is based on the recent academic debates in sociology and political science recognising the contested relation between transnational governance, based on international treaties and organisations, and territorial segmentation of the political system into nation states, which has been exploited and encouraged by a wide variety of populisms. The rationale is derived from our research confirming that the support for European transnational governance towards sustainable development are significantly more typical for the active participants in European transnational social sphere and the elites, while the others find it more difficult to see the significance and legitimacy of transnationally coordinated sustainable development. Maintaining, strengthening and legitimising European governance for sustainable development requires bridging the gap between those included in the European transnational social sphere and those who feel to be “left behind” (typically confined to local and national contexts). This calls for a clear link between social, economic and environmental sustainability. In that regard, the Chair intends to bring closer the role of the EU in the sustainable development by integrating the main priorities of the documents such as the EU Sustainable Development Strategy into Chair curricula and by connecting academic staff and students with the international academic environment and the local and national stakeholders, including the local communities, civil society and decision makers with corresponding activities encouraging public debates on local, national and transnational level, and between different stakeholders on the topic.