Welcome to IEEP's Site for EPIGOV - Environmental Policy Integration and Multi-level Governance

Start Date - December 1, 2006
Duration of Project - 36 months
Coordinator at IEEP - Marc Pallemaerts
Co-ordinated Action under the EU's Sixth Research Framework Programme Priority Seven - Citizens and Governance in a knowledge based society

About EPIGOV

EPIGOV is a research project on the modes of governance employed at global, EU, national and regional/local levels to support the integration of environmental concerns into other policy areas, for example transport, agricultural, and energy policy.

EPIGOV brings together 19 research institutions from ten European countries and aims to co-ordinate and synthesise existing research on environmental policy integration and multi-level governance and to generate new research questions and initiatives. To obtain feedback and disseminate results, EPIGOV will also involve policy-makers and non-state stakeholders.

EPIGOV addresses two sets of key research questions:

• Which modes of governance are used to improve environmental policy integration (EPI) at different levels of governance? Is it possible to identify dominant modes at particular levels? Which modes are particularly effective or promising?
• Which effects does the presence/interaction of the same/different modes of governance at different levels of governance have on EPI?

The project will focus primarily on the first question of identifying modes of governance which are used to support EPI. Building on this, it will be possible to address interaction effects at a later stage in the project. EPIGOV is built around three thematic conferences which will be held over the duration of the project. The EPIGOV partners will produce a range of different types of publications, including literature reviews, state-of-the-art reports, research papers, a final synthesis report, and a policy paper.

IEEP's Role in EPIGOV

IEEP is one of four senior partners in this project (along with Ecologic (the co-ordinator), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM). IEEP will contribute a number of publications on the themes of this project in the next three years as well as organise a conference in Brussels in February 2007 on 'EPI: Conceptual and theoretical issues and modes of governance' and 'EPI at the EU level'.

Further information on this project can be found on the EPIGOV website.