Environmental governance is a core challenge of modern times. While scholars have made impressive contributions to understanding environmental sciences, environmental politics and governance remain understudied. Indeed, progress on many environmental issues especially climate change is impeded by political factors and not by the lack of scientific knowledge. The reason is that environmental politics provokes the classic questions of who gets, what, how, and when.
The Environmental Politics and Governance (EPG) network provides a platform for scholars studying environmental issues to present research, exchange ideas, and collaborate. While many EPG scholars are trained as political scientists, EPG welcomes scholars from any discipline who work on the issues of environmental politics, policy, or governance.
EPG does not have a formal organizational structure. The “EPG elders,” who founded this network and regularly participate in its activities, constitute an informal international steering committee. EPG organizes five events: (1) the annual conference, (2) biweekly online seminars, (3) deep climate conversations, and (4) careers.
The annual conference rotates between North American and European Universities and is held typically in June or July. The Call for Papers is put out in October-November with the submission deadline in January. Each proposal is reviewed (blindly) by two members of the international steering committee. Based on this feedback, the local host, who acts as the program chair for the conference, constructs the program.
By design, the annual conferences are limited to about 60-70 participants. There are no parallel sessions to ensure that participants attend all panels and are able to interact with each other. Sessions are marked by high-level of audience involvement and civility. Typically, conference participants are expected to sign up to provide written feedback on two papers.
To date, the annual conferences have been hosted by University of Washington, Seattle (2015), ETH Zurich (2016), Indiana University, Bloomington (2017), Stockholm University (2018), University of California, Santa Barbara (2019), University of Oslo (2020, 2021, virtual conferences due to COVID), Penn State (2022), University of Glasgow (2023) and University of Laval, Quebec City (2024). The 2025 conference will be hosted by a consortium of Swiss Universities: ETH Zurich, University of Bern, University of Lucerne, and EPFL Lausanne.
EPG organizes several other events. EPG also organizes a biweekly online seminar series which provides an additional venue for scholars to present their research in progress. If you wish to present a seminar, please contact Liam F. Beiser-McGrath. For the list of presenters in previous seminars, click here.
Deep Climate Conversations is an online structured roundtable (i.e., questions circulated in advance to speakers) on a specific issue. The objective is to explore climate issues at a deeper, theoretical level. For more information on Deep Conversations, contact Jennifer Hadden or Aseem Prakash. For the program, click here.
Finally, the EPG network provides two careers-focused resources. First, it provides a consolidated listing of climate/environmental faculty and post-doc positions. For questions, please email Liam F. Beiser-McGrath. Second, it hosts a mentoring platform to connect emerging scholars with senior scholars in the EPG network. For more information on the mentoring program, please contact David Konisky.
EPG network maintains the Environmental Governance listserv. If you wish to join it, click here.