Societal Metabolism

Liphe4 is a non-for-profit, scientific association established in 2003, which gathers an international group of scholars in the field of Sustainability Science. Its aim is to promote and participate in research and educational activities related to Sustainability Science, Science for Governance, with a particular focus on Integrated Analysis of Scenarios and technological changes. It organises a yearly summer school and thematic sessions at scientific conferences. Members of both its International Board and its Scientific Advisory Board have an outstanding academic record and a long experience in participating in research projects, many of which European funded.

This workshops aims at bringing together experts from different disciplines for the discussion of the latest results in research regarding energy technologies, energy systems and their political, social and economical impacts. We aim at sharpening the scientific focus and building a critical mass and collaborative network among scientists researching energy issues. We will discuss the question of future energy scenarios and their implications in a circle of open minded people representing different approaches in order to gain new momentum in these years as societal attention once again shifts toward policy debates and decisions concerning sustainable use of energy and resources and their relationship to the economics of humanity and the future of the plant as a convenient habitat.

The organisers of the workshop will do their best to concentrate the discussion on needs and energy services for medium and long term developments within the framework of a sustainable economic development. The workshop will be a platform for those who take the energy issue as a serious challenge to our and the next generations and we are aware that a great number of scenarios have to be discussed. This is why we invite acknowledged experts for presentation papers but also anyone who is interested to contribute to the workshops. The event will be complemented with excursions to installation of energy efficiency and renewable energy in the region in order to learn from the day-to-day business.

In order to be in consistency with the workshop idea, the workshop will be organized as "Zero Emissions Event".

Details on previous Workshop editions can be found here.

SMILE project takes place within EU seventh framework programme, theme 8 “Socioeconomic Sciences and Humanities” (SSH).

The project is based on previous work carried out by the project partners in a FP6 DECOIN project (Development and Comparison of Sustainability Indicators, see www.decoin.eu). The idea is to use the procedure that have been developed in DECOIN to analyse the trade-offs and synergies between different aspects of sustainable development.

The project consortium consists of non-profit research organisations with a strong background in environmental issues and/or sustainability indicators/evaluation. During the creation of the consortium, great care has been taken that all partners will not only contribute to the project, but will also receive immediate as well as long-term benefits from the project, either by strengthening existing activities or by opening up new directions in their field. This ensures high motivation and the identification of all partners with the objectives of this research project.

The DECOIN project deals with sustainable development indicators and the methodology of analyzing inter-linkages between different trends in the EU. The DECOIN project will contribute to the research towards a sustainable European knowledge society through the development of the EU framework of Sustainable Development Indicators. Through the methodological work concerning the analytical frameworks the project will help the EU and its Member States to better observe the trends in relation to the different dimensions of sustainability. The very broad societal relevance of the overall research topic is exceptional and so the project will play an important role in serving the society as a whole.