Cooperation and Transformative Governance (CAT) aims to analyze governance systems addressing sustainability at different scales and to generate cooperative solutions.
Societal transitions caused by unprecedented technological innovations and industrial transformations, such as energy transitions or digitalisation, as well as environmental or health related crises require new effective governance approaches to handle inherent social dilemmas and wicked problems.
Transformative governance includes formal and informal institutions which are involved - at multiple scales - in responding to, managing, and triggering positive shifts in coupled social-ecological systems towards sustainability. A growing complexity of decision-making processes in modern society requires improved synchronization and coordination of different branches and levels of governance. Transformative governance faces two major challenges. First, the underlying difficulty of any transformative governance process is a social dilemma, that is a collective action situation when interests of separate individuals contradict interests of a community or society. Second, transformative governance involves with wicked problems – problems that are difficult or impossible to solve as they are characterized by incomplete information and contradicting and constantly evolving views and objectives of involved stakeholders and social groups.
Th CAT group focus is on wicked problems and social dilemmas in decision-making advancing appropriate methodologies and conducting a series of case studies. Areas of application include:
- Public health including COVID-19;
- Climate change and natural hazards,
- Biodiversity and ecosystems, including oceans;
- Societal transitions caused by technological innovations, industrial transformations or environmental changes; and
- Digital world and misinformation spread in the Internet.
The CAT group is using the following methods:
- cooperation models, including game-theoretical models for public good and common pool management with real-world complexities as well as bounded rationality, social heterogeneity, cultural dispositions, and institutional incentives;
- decision support systems accounting for multiple conflicting objectives; and
- methods to facilitate stakeholder dialogue, including participatory modelling, systems mapping, gamification, scenario planning.
The overarching methodological ambition of CAT’s work is to advance the practice of using models to understand and support decision making processes that are characterized by uncertainty, volatility, ambiguity and complexity.
CAT has a unique composition of researchers from a wide area range of disciplines that are fundamental for addressing its goals. The Research Group includes researchers from political sciences, mathematics, game theorists, behavioural economists, among others. The unique combination of deep disciplinary knowledge, a broad understanding of the practical challenges of transformative governance, and rigorous mathematical and systems-analytical focus is a strong basis for innovative work of high societal relevance. Extended networks of several young and senior scientists enables delivering real-world impact by addressing contested governance problems.
Models, tools, datasets
Projects
Staff
News
18 October 2023
Creating a platform for disaster management and risk reduction
27 September 2023
Social Media Intelligence Mining Tool
12 July 2023
Unmasking Climate Conversations: Insights from Twitter Discourse. IIASA Researcher Presents Study at International Association for Media and Communication Research Pre-Conference
Events
Focus
20 February 2024
Unearthing the gold: the art and science of social intelligence mining
In the era of digital communication, myriads of social media and web platforms can be used as vital sources of data, which can help us explore the patterns of how public opinion and reactions are shaped, how new trends emerge, and how the market dynamics work. Being at the forefront of exploring this promising field, IIASA researchers Hossein Hassani and Nadejda Komendantova explain what social intelligence mining is and how can it be used for our collective benefit.
13 November 2023
Empowering youth to spearhead the energy transition
The newly established International Vienna Energy and Climate Forum provided an opportunity to discuss best practices and present solutions to tackle climate change and achieve a green energy transition. Hossein Hassani and Nadejda Komendantova share their insights from a fireside chat at the event that focused on the role of young people in clean energy transitions.
Publications
Komendantova, N. , Zobeidi, T., & Yazdanpanah, M. (2024). How Do Instagram Messages Affect the Use of Renewable Energy? -- Application of an Extended Information Adoption Model. Journal of Environmental Informatics 43 10.3808/jei.202400515. Zobeidi, T., Yazdanpanah, M., Komendantova, N. , Lohr, K., & Sieber, S. (2024). Evaluating climate change adaptation options in the agriculture sector: a PROMETHEE-GAIA analysis. Environmental and Sustainability Indicators 22 e100395. 10.1016/j.indic.2024.100395. Yosipof, A., Drori, N., Elroy, O., & Pierraki, Y. (2024). Textual sentiment analysis and description characteristics in crowdfunding success: The case of cybersecurity and IoT industries. Electronic Markets 34 (1) e30. 10.1007/s12525-024-00712-4. Carr, T.W., Addo, F. , Palazzo, A. , Havlik, P. , Pérez Guzmán, K. , Ali, Z., Green, R., Hadida, G., Segnon, A.C., Zougmoré, R., & Scheelbeek, P. (2024). Addressing future food demand in The Gambia: can increased crop productivity and climate change adaptation close the supply–demand gap? Food Security 10.1007/s12571-024-01444-1. (In Press) Deka, C., Dutta, M.K., Yazdanpanah, M., & Komendantova, N. (2024). When ‘Fear Factors’ Motivate People to Adopt Electric Vehicles in India: An Empirical Investigation of the Protection Motivation Theory. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption e100191. 10.1016/j.clrc.2024.100191. (In Press)