Research group: International Climate Policy

The International Climate Policy research group has been a key part of CICERO since the early 1990s.

Most political scientists involved in international climate policy research in Norway are members of the group. The focus is on international, national and regional climate policy research.

The research group is rather small and might be below critical mass were it not so well connected with other researchers both nationally and internationally. It is an attractive partner for collaborations on international, national and regional climate policy research, and has been very successful in soliciting external funding to this end.

The group is led by Guri Bang, a prominent international climate policy researcher. With the recent reorganisation of CICERO’s leadership group, her work tasks are now concentrated on scientific leadership. Since 2011, CICERO has hosted the FME (Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research) Strategic Challenges in International Climate Policy and Energy Policy (CICEP). This means that, in practice, the research group on International Climate Policy extends beyond those employed at CICERO, adding to critical mass. The group mainly consists of political scientists, both at CICERO (eleven researchers in total) and at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo and the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI). In all, more than 20 senior and junior researchers are active in the CICEP group.

Hence, CICERO is closely connected to national expertise in this research field, creating a world-leading group of researchers who focus on various aspects of international climate policy negotiations and effectiveness. This makes CICERO an attractive partner for national and international collaborations in leading-edge climate research. The two main research goals are to identify international policy options and strategies that can drive the transition towards low-carbon energy systems, and to arrive at politically feasible policy options.

The group’s funding comes almost exclusively from the RCN (e.g. KLIMA21 and ENERGI21), which covers 95% of external research project funding plus the FME centre. The group is thereby heavily dependent on the priorities set in RCN programmes. Since CICERO’s mandate focuses on user-oriented research, with high societal relevance as well as academic excellence, this dependence is not really a problem as long as the RCN continues to prioritise climate policy research, and allows for longer-term funding in the form of supporting research milieus such as the FME centre. However, the dependence on the RCN does carry a certain risk, so that it could be advisable to expand the portfolio to include EU Horizon2020 research funding and other potential sources of more stable long-term funding. The self-assessment mentions that CICERO has indeed applied for H2020 project funding in recent years, and participated in a COST-network (INOGOV), but these efforts to engage in EU initiatives could be further intensified.

In the last decade, according to the self-assessment, the CICEP group has produced over 150 international peer-reviewed publications, even though all of them cannot be attributed to CICERO-based researchers. In addition, the group’s large number of more policy-oriented activities have included contributing to IPCC and COP events, producing articles in the KLIMA newsletter, making a video on the history of climate change negotiations, and organising various workshops with both researchers and practitioners. The institute’s strategy is therefore very successful, combining excellence in academic publishing with wider dissemination and involvement with policymakers.

CICERO provides the research group with staff and administrative support, including assistance with project budgeting and project coordination. CICERO has a contract with UiO that gives it access to the

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university library database. All those resources are used regularly by the researchers and seem to be fully adequate as long as external research funding and close links with UiO are secured.

The group consists of both senior and junior researchers, about evenly spread between men and women. Age diversity has been considerably strengthened as a result of the recent recruitment of PhD candidates and postdocs. The group is led by a female senior researcher whose tasks include mentoring younger staff and supporting research activities.

Recruitment to the research group began in the early 1990s and it has been further developed through CICEP. Two PhD students and one postdoc were recently recruited to CICERO and one to the Department of Political Science at UiO with CICEP funding. In addition, FNI recruited one PhD student and the Department of Political Science at UiO another postdoc, three more PhD students and a professor II (Miranda Schreurs) for the explicit purpose of supporting CICEP research and training. The group has become stronger as a result, and rejuvenation is secured at least until the funding for CICEP ceases in 2019. Most of the recruitment was domestic, but several new staff have master’s degrees from foreign universities, and the professor II position was filled by a US/German citizen.

The training and mentoring of PhD candidates takes place as a joint endeavour between CICERO and the Department of Political Science, UiO. Each PhD student at CICERO has two supervisors – one from UiO and one from CICERO. The PhD candidates have the expertise required to pursue specified research projects, while at the same time following courses at UiO and or elsewhere, with adequate encouragement and financial support from CICERO. CICERO cannot arrange PhD training unless it is conducted together with UiO, but ‘young researcher seminars’ are held twice a year to ensure familiarity with academic procedures and to promote extensive networking with external PhD students and senior scholars. The PhD training is well integrated in CICERO’s research environment.

CICERO has a very strong international network it can benefit from, both in terms of producing high-quality research together with internationally leading researchers, and in terms of exchange visits and joint research projects. Several researchers in the group have been on stays abroad, although they have tended to be rather short (which is a common issue, not just for CICERO, but also for Norwegian researchers in general). Researchers from several foreign institutions have also been on longer stays at CICERO.

This research group has high impact and an excellent international reputation, as confirmed by the fourteen submitted publications. The majority of them are in Level 2 outlets, such as European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Environmental Politics, Environmental Resource Economics, and Governance, suggesting that publishing in high-impact outlets is strongly encouraged. The chosen publications represent research of excellent, and in some instances world-leading, quality in this research field. They draw upon a multitude of theories and approaches within the research field of international environmental governance, with the emphasis on climate change negotiations and implementation of climate policy. Several of the publications deal with pertinent issues relating to ongoing global climate negotiations and the politics of implementing domestic climate policy in different countries, and they contribute valuable theoretical as well as empirical input to understanding the challenges involved. Specific examples include: developing an understanding of when and how informal enforcement works in multilateral environmental agreements; unpacking the agenda-setting role of target groups in European policymaking; and theorising about the factors that determine the effectiveness of international environmental regimes. The publications also contribute

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important insights into theories on the formation and implementation of climate and environmental governance at domestic levels, including regional and sub-national levels.

The group addresses key questions in the scientific debate (which are also highly relevant to policy practice), namely to identify policy options and strategies that can drive the transition towards low-carbon energy systems, and determines feasible policy options. This includes both climate mitigation and adaptation, although the original emphasis was on mitigation. Several of the publications deal with pertinent issues relating to the ongoing climate negotiations and the politics and implementation of domestic climate policy in different countries, and they contribute valuable empirical input to understanding the challenges involved: for example, in the journal Nature Climate Change, where distribution, initiation and performance of climate governance is analysed; or in the book Domestic Politics of Global Climate Change, where climate and energy policy trajectories in six OECD countries and the European Union are examined.

The group’s scientific work has advanced the understanding of international climate governance in particular, and contributed substantially to efficiency, as well as equity considerations, in the design and implementation of climate accords.

When appropriate, CICERO works systematically on interdisciplinary research to study issues of climate policy, including the effectiveness and sustainability of climate change regimes at the global, national and regional level. There are examples of interdisciplinary approaches among the research group publications, notably between economists and political scientists in the publications on experimental analysis of endogenous minimum participation in international environmental agreements, and on the review of formal models of climate cooperation. The institutional self-assessment also mentions interdisciplinary projects between political scientists and sociologists, for example examining transitions and behavioural change.

The group has access to an extensive international research network that includes partners in both the North and South, and major climate players outside the OECD, such as Brazil, China and India. Several of the submitted publications are co-authored with internationally leading researchers in the field, while others are written together with domestic colleagues, mainly within the CICEP research group.

This collaboration undoubtedly contributes to making the CICERO researchers highly renowned internationally and frequently cited in the research field. By furthering collaboration with universities in Norway and abroad, the group could do more to ensure that its research feeds into others’ teaching programmes.

According to the self-assessment, impact on teaching takes place through the CICEP partnership. The group has given a course on agent-based modelling, and several researchers do most of the teaching in International Energy Politics and International Environmental Politics and have been involved as lecturers in other courses at UiO. The group also engages master’s students in thesis writing connected to ongoing research.

This research group plays an active role in climate and energy policy debates, both internationally and in Norway, as part of CICERO’s strong communications strategy, with newsletters, media coverage, and public events of various kinds targeting different audiences. The impact case, ‘Fair Paris’,

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convincingly shows how the research has been used in global climate negotiations (see the assessment of CICERO above).

The research findings from this group are widely disseminated and widely known through CICERO’s various communications forums, and the group is very active in bringing its research to both the global climate policy negotiations table and relevant national actors in Norway that are engaged in climate policy implementation. Given the high priority it gives to making a difference in the ‘real world’, the group could benefit from further exploring its impact beyond academia.

This is a world-leading group of researchers in the field of international climate policy negotiations and effectiveness. Its research is at the core of CICERO’s mandate, and the group is sufficiently large and thriving due to its age diversity and extensive international and national networks.

Assessment of research group: 5 - excellent

Efforts should be made to secure its research portfolio beyond the end of CICEP funding, and to widen its sources of funding in line with the advice given to CICERO as a whole. The wider societal impact of its research is considerable, but it could still benefit from being more systematically appraised and documented.

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