CEECEC (Civil Society Engagement with ECological EConomics) is a European Commission FP7 funded project that aims to enable Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to engage in and lead collaborative research with ecological economists. The overall focus is not on theory but on case study learning, whereby CSOs and academics will identify and explore key issues for research in areas such as water management, mining, energy, forestry and agriculture, based on CSO needs and interests. The end result will be a stand-alone online handbook, containing civil society case studies hyperlinked to a glossary, and an interactive online course, both of these designed to introduce and explain the principles, tools and methods of Ecological Economics to CSOs and the general public.

Ecological Economics (EE) is a science of sustainability that views the economy as embedded in the greater biophysical ecosystem. Through a trans-disciplinary approach, it emphasizes the social, economic, biophysical, cultural and ethical issues at stake in the management of human economies and their interactions with the natural world. EE provides tools and methods with a potential for wide impact in environmental policy-making at a European and global level.

Areas of study include: ecological distribution conflicts and their link with the social metabolism of societies, the development of physical indicators and indices, the multiplicity of languages of valuation at stake in resource management, multi-criteria evaluation methods and environmental policy instruments to improve sustainability.

CEECEC aims to increase the interaction between EE academics and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). CSOs have large stocks of environmental knowledge gained from their grassroots experience and activism. Yet there is a growing demand from CSOs for access to expertise and practical methods for applying EE to their work. CSOs could also profit from increased capacity in EE to give analytical foundations to activism and policy making. Meanwhile, EE will benefit from CSO knowledge, learning and improving its disciplinary approaches and accessibility to the public at large.

The CEECEC project has adopted a case study approach in order to achieve its capacity building goals. Both CSOs and academics will identify and explore key issues for research in areas such as water management, mining, energy, forestry and agriculture, based on CSO needs and interests. The end result will be incorporated into online materials explaining the principles, tools and methods of EE for CSOs and the general public, and an interactive online course, both in several languages. In addition to these main outputs, there are also work streams dealing with the assessment of CSO / ecological economics collaboration specifically in the Balkan region, and with the assessment and mapping of previous ecological economics research used by CSOs internationally.

Download the CEECEC brochure

To learn about the CEECEC case studies click here