Seminars and conferences (EPOG-JM)

Ecological challenges from a multidisciplinary perspective (Semester 3)

The major eco­log­i­cal and social cri­sis that Plan­et Earth, its ter­ri­to­ries, liv­ing envi­ron­ments and inhab­i­tants are going through, makes it nec­es­sary to deal with sys­temic, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary issues relat­ed to the envi­ron­ment. The increased sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the effects of human activ­i­ties on the major bal­ances of the bios­phere, pri­mar­i­ly cli­mate change, the extinc­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty, pol­lu­tion, the con­sid­er­able pres­sure on nat­ur­al resources and set­tle­ment dynam­ics, raise impor­tant polit­i­cal and social debates. The major cycles such as water, car­bon, nitro­gen, the major tel­luric or cli­mat­ic phe­nom­e­na, ener­gy resources, are all process­es that must be rethought today in their inter­ac­tions with human activities. 

In this sem­i­nar, we will deal with dif­fer­ent dimen­sions of this cri­sis and ways to respond to it.

Find the pro­gramme on the “Eco­log­i­cal chal­lenges” sem­i­nars web­page.

The joint seminars (Semester 3)

One of the main objec­tives of the EPOG+ Eras­mus Mundus Joint Mas­ter Degree is to pro­vide a “systemic/holistic” approach of eco­nom­ic poli­cies to each stu­dent. That means offer­ing each stu­dent a spe­cif­ic field of study relat­ed to the cho­sen Major togeth­er with cours­es, sem­i­nars and activ­i­ties relat­ed to the oth­er Majors.

With­in this per­spec­tive, the pro­gramme organ­is­es a series of “joint sem­i­nars” (involv­ing the whole cohort). They pro­vide a com­mon cul­ture among the stu­dents and a both the­o­ret­i­cal and applied per­spec­tive on var­i­ous eco­nom­ic the­o­ries and poli­cies. This is done through sem­i­nars involv­ing a large set of promi­nent aca­d­e­m­ic and non-aca­d­e­m­ic experts in the field and offer­ing an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach (includ­ing eco­nom­ics, law and polit­i­cal sci­ences, geog­ra­phy, his­to­ry, soci­ol­o­gy…). They extend two cours­es also com­mon to the whole cohort: (i) Trans­for­ma­tions of glob­al cap­i­tal­ism: eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy per­spec­tives and (ii) Eco­log­i­cal chal­lenges from a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary perspective.

These 30–40 year­ly sem­i­nars are organ­ised dur­ing the Semes­ter 3 (between the begin­ning of Sep­tem­ber and the begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary). They deal with:

• The dig­i­tal tran­si­tion and the sociotech­ni­cal bifurcation;
• The socioe­co­nom­ic bifurcation;
• The socioe­co­log­i­cal bifur­ca­tion (in asso­ci­a­tion with the Cen­tre for Earth Poil­i­tics and the Insti­tute for the Envi­ron­men­tal Transition)
• Top­i­cal issues and debates on the eco­nom­ic poli­cies in the age of globalisation

The stu­dents will be asked to work, among oth­er sources, on sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles and offi­cial reports from pub­lic and pri­vate organ­i­sa­tions that analyse eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy. The work asked to the stu­dents includes:

• the dis­cus­sion of arti­cles and pre­sen­ta­tions giv­en by both aca­d­e­mics and prac­ti­tion­ers. Each stu­dent will be appoint­ed as dis­cus­sant for a giv­en set of sem­i­nars and assessed on the basis of a) rich­ness and orig­i­nal­i­ty of the qual­i­ty of the dis­cus­sion, b) its crit­i­cal dimen­sion in ref­er­ence to the argu­ments of the main speak­er, and c) its links to the exist­ing lit­er­a­ture on the top­ic at hand;
• the over­all par­tic­i­pa­tion to the dis­cus­sion with­in the sem­i­nars where the stu­dents are not appoint­ed as discussants;
• a paper, which can be whether a “pol­i­cy brief” or “reg­u­lar work” in rela­tion to the sem­i­nars. It should take advan­tage of the under­stand­ing of eco­nom­ic poli­cies inter­de­pen­den­cies pro­vid­ed in the frame­work of the joint sem­i­nars (and thus go beyond the core knowl­edge relat­ed to the Major he/she is involved in). Cross-fer­til­iza­tion between the three Majors and coop­er­a­tion among stu­dents is encouraged.

The joint sem­i­nars are open to the pub­lic, in par­tic­u­lar to the researchers of the labs belong­ing to the Paris hub of EPOG+ asso­ci­at­ed part­ners.

Find the pro­gramme and videos on the “Joint sem­i­nars” web­page.

The Master’s conferences

At the end of the sec­ond year, a con­fer­ence is organ­ised. This allows all stu­dents to present their final Mas­ter’s the­sis work to the oth­er stu­dents of the cohort, to the alum­ni and to the aca­d­e­m­ic and non aca­d­e­m­ic experts invit­ed to exchange with stu­dents. Some of these con­fer­ence will be joint­ly held with inter­na­tion­al aca­d­e­m­ic conferences.

For more details: here.