The Early Career Investigators’ Network (ECIN) is a sub-group of the INOGOV Network, specifically aimed at facilitating mutual learning between early career researchers and support and mentoring from senior colleagues.

ECIN brings together more than 80 young scholars from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK. The ECIN members study aspects of climate policy innovation in a number of different academic disciplines, including political science, geography, international relations and economics.

If you are an early career researcher with interests in INOGOV-related research, and would like to hear more or get involved, please get in contact with Jonas Schoenefeld: J.Schoenefeld@uea.ac.uk

ECIs in Prague, 2015: Front row left to right: Paula Castro, Nicole Schmidt, back row left to right: Brendan Moore, Jonas Schoenefeld, Paul Tobin.

ECIN’s upcoming opportunities:

(1) Interested in learning more about the publishing process? We’re looking for reviewers for our brand-new working paper series! Please contact Nicole/Brendan/Thomas at workingpaperseries@inogov.eu

(2) Become more visible in our network! Please send Jonas (j.schoenefeld@uea.ac.uk) your info + picture for the ECIN website (see ECIN people page for examples)

(3) INOGOV Spring School 2018. We are still working on the details, however more information will be available in late summer 2017.

(4) Call for Papers for Junior Researcher Conference, Polycentric Climate Governance after Paris: Expectations, Challenges and Pathways. 12–14 April 2018 at University of Freiburg. Click here for more details.

ECIN’s current activities include:

(1) An active, open and vibrant network: We met for the first time in Prague in June 2015, and hold regular conference calls to welcome new members, and to learn about and plan activities within ECIN. New members are always welcome!

(2) INOGOV Policy Brief Series: ECIN conceptualized and, in collaboration with some INOGOV core group members, started a new INOGOV Policy brief series, which aims to make cutting-edge INOGOV research results available to various policy communities. Two ECIN members, Karoline Steinbacher and Jonas Schoenefeld, published the first INOGOV Policy Brief on renewables governance in the European Union in November 2015.

(3) Working Paper series: ECIN conceptualized a new INOGOV working paper series, which began in 2016.

(4) Adaptation Working Group (AWG): The adaptation working group brings together ECIN scholars working on adaptation. The group has recently been founded and is currently working towards a joint paper project. The AWG leaders are James Patterson and Chris Donaldson. If you would like to join the group, please contact James or Chris (details here).

Past activities:

Climate governance innovation trends in the run-up to Paris 2015: analysing mitigation and adaptation policies: In May 2017 two ECIN members, Dr Paul Tobin (University of Manchester) and Nicole Schmidt (Heidelberg University) organised a three-day workshop for Early Career Researchers which sought to identify and analyse the key mitigation and adaptation trends that led up to COP-21 in Paris. Hosted at the International Academic Forum at Heidelberg University, Germany, the event drew presenters from three continents alongside experts and students based at the university. Participants presented and gave feedback on a range of topics, including the role of transnational municipal networks, small island developing states, path dependence at the United Nations and more. The ECIN organisers are extremely grateful to resident expert Professor Jale Tosun for her thoughtful feedback on the papers as well as to Field of Focus 4 for co-funding the workshop.

INOGOV organised a Spring School in March 2017, Governing climate change: Polycentricity in action hosted by the Open University, Heerlen, Netherlands.  The 4 day Spring School used lectures, small group discussions and participant paper presentations to explore the emergence of a progressively complex, poly-centred regime pattern and the extent polycentricity can contribute effectively to climate change mitigation and adaptation. In addition to numerous opportunities for networking between early career and with more senior researchers, evaluation and methodologies to research climate governance innovation were also discussed. The next INOGOV Spring School is taking place 2018, with more details announced in September 2017.

ECIN had a strong presence at INOGOV’s Working Group 4 meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia. The meeting on Wednesday was attended by 20 ECIN members, who had a chance to learn about existing ECIN activities, such as policy briefs, working papers, the adaptation working group and our workshops. On Thursday and Friday, several ECIN members presented ECIN’s key achievements so far, including a successful funding bid to the Swiss Science Foundation for an exploratory workshop in Zurich in Feburary 2016, and ECIN’s role in furthering INOGOV’s policies on sustainability and inclusivity. The ECIN are always keen to welcome new members to our network and to develop our activities, including an exciting dedicated ECIN workhop at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in May 2017.

Swiss National Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop ‘Understanding data frontiers in climate governance research’: Spearheaded by Dr Paula Castro, and several ECIN members collaborated to organise an exploratory workshop with funds from the Swiss National Science Foundation. The workshop was held on 15-16 Feburary 2016 at the University of Zurich, with 16 participants, including keynotes from Prof. Thomas Bernauer (ETH) and Prof. Mikael Hilden (Finnish Environment Institute). The workshop participants are working on a short publication based on the discussions and findings, and two blogs have already been published: 1) Academics up in the air: The emissions impact of a climate governance workshop (INOGOV website here); 2) Where are the frontiers of climate governance data? (on Environmental Europe).

ECIN has grown to include more than 80 researchers with interests in INOGOV-related research. Details of some of our members are listed on our people page.