Project List

Funded by the DFG’s Initiation of International Collaboration programme, the project aims to strengthen a research collaboration with Prof. Karolina Barglowski (Université du Luxembourg), Prof. Irma Budginaitė-Mačkinė (Vilnius University), and Dr. Thais França (ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon). In view of ongoing sociological discussions about class formation processes beyond national borders and belongings, the project explores whether and how the European Union’s student mobility programme Erasmus+ functions as a site of transnational class formation. Over the course of 12 months, the team will meet for two workshops in Flensburg and conduct research visits to Lisbon and Luxembourg.  

This project emerges from the need to reassess the growing disconnect between human habitats and the natural world. The objective is to reverse this trend through an innovative approach that combines the promotion of biomes, bio-construction, and collaborative robotics for the construction of regenerative and resilient buildings. The methodology proposes the development of software capable of generating adaptive architectural models, integrating them into their natural context, maximizing energy efficiency, and promoting biodiversity.

The market uptake of RES depends on a complex combination of political, geographical, economic, social and cultural factors that are specifically intertwined in each locality. In addition, the acceptance and willingness of directly affected stakeholders to support the deployment of RES depends on the perceived fairness about how the decisions are made (procedural justice) and how the benefits are shared (distributive justice). POWERUP adopts a holistic approach towards the market uptake of RES for electricity and provides a set of open source tools and methodologies addressing all these factors, tailoring the RES projects to the local conditions and increaseing their acceptability and market uptake. The tools include a GIS-based decision support tool for initial feasibility assessment, a business model toolkit for reconciling stakeholder requirements and producing equitable business models, and a co-creation toolkit for engaging the stakeholders in co-design of a RES project that is reproducible and tailored to the local needs and conditions. The tools are supported by a social acceptability strategy for RES that provides guidance for considering all social aspects in the decision-making and design process. The POWERUP tools and methodologies will be extensively validated in 4 European regions and replicated in 10 follower regions, covering a variety of conditions all over Europe. The project aims to involve >700 public and private stakeholders and organise 46 workshops, incresing the perception of fairness of the RES business models by 80% and the community acceptance by at least 50%. The project consortium is a team from 5 EU countries that comprises regional energy agencies, public authorities, universities, and research centres and includes leading experts in Social Science and Humanities, Business, Renewable Energies, ICT and data science, legal and regulatory framework, with large practical experience in promotion of the renewable energies uptake.

The r.a.í.z.e.S. project - Sintra's social and emotional skills development program - is part of the (inter)municipal programs for promoting school success (PIPSE), as a continuity of the project ADN Socioemocional 2.0. The proposed action plan for the project includes: The proposed intervention with its conceptual framework, including technical and scientific justification; Initial assessment; Methodology of the intervention to be implemented; Monitoring of the intervention; Final impact assessment.  

This doctoral thesis project in Political Science focuses on investigating the factors that determine the electoral success of female candidates for political office in Brazil. Despite the existence of affirmative action, such as gender quotas, female political representation in Brazil remains the lowest in the Americas, sitting at only 18.1% in the national parliament.The research aims to evaluate, in particular, the impact of two fundamental variables: campaign financing and the digital influence achieved through new social media. The study raises two central hypotheses: first, that adequate funding is a determining factor for electoral victory; and second, that digital influence is equally a decisive factor, capable of mitigating the lack of traditional resources.Methodologically, a quantitative, comparative, and explanatory approach will be adopted, analyzing campaign data for proportional offices (federal deputies and senators) in the 2018 and 2022 electoral cycles. Using statistical models of logistic and multiple regression, the author will relate campaign funds and digital engagement (on Facebook, Instagram, and X) with the electoral results of elected and non-elected female candidates.In short, the research aims to create a predictive model to guide future female candidates and their respective political parties. The ultimate goal is to provide empirical data to support new public policies that encourage financial equity and digital protection, contributing to a more egalitarian and democratic political participation. Supervisor: Ana Espírito-Santo