European Network of Political Ecology

ENTITLE will train 17 researchers in the emerging supra-disciplinary field of Political Ecology, giving them the theoretical, analytical and complementary skills that will make them employable in jobs related to environmental policy analysis and advocacy. Research and training are framed around five key cluster sub-programmes concerned with the analysis of: environmental conflicts; environmental movements; natural disasters; changes in the commons; and environmental justice and democracy. Research is based on a series of empirical-based investigations of a geographically and thematically diverse set of case-studies. The researchers of the network will collaborate to offer a theoretical and methodological framework for the empirical research and will synthesise the results of the individual cases in a series of publishable outputs. Research will be action and policy-oriented culminating in a series of Action and Policy Briefs targeting civil society organizations and policy-makers. Training includes an integrated curriculum of local and intensive network courses, summer schools, secondments and training through work. Researchers will be seconded to and recruited by one SME and two NGO partners of the project, building bridges between academia and practice. ENTITLE builds on an ongoing collaboration in training between the participating institutions, manifested in a series of successful summer schools. It brings together some of the world´s top scholars in the field, and overcomes the fragmentation of existing political ecological research in Europe, offering a critical mass of research and training. It is integrated with a number of related FP7 research projects, and builds on a network of reliable and capable partners with considerable experience in EU project management. The researchers trained in the network will be employable in academia, public administration, NGOs and the consultancy sector.