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Full professor
HABITER - Sustainability science research center
University of Reims
57 bis rue Pierre Taittinger
Reims, 51096 CEDEX
France
Tel: +33.6.12.53.74.46
Email:
Email 2:
http://www.sustainability-studies.org
http://babel.hypotheses.org
Biography: I am full professor at Reims University, head of a Sustainability Science Research Center and director of the IATEUR - Urban, Regional Planning and Sustainability Science Institute in Reims. As the holder of the Chaire de la France Contemporaine at Montreal University I address the topic of "sustainability, equities and social justice". Previously I was professor of planning at Grenoble 1 University. I also have been a science advisor to the LCPC (French National Public Works Research Laboratory). Previously, again, I was associate professor at Paris 4 Sorbonne University in 2001. There I completed my HDR (post PhD capacity degree to supervize research programs) on sustainable development. My book "Le développement durable" (Sustainable Development) (secd. ed. 2010) received the Logerot prize of the French Society of Geography. Besides, I am member of the planning section of the French CNU (National Universities Council) and holder of the PES (French Scientific Excellence Premium). My background is an interdisciplinary one. I was a planning engineer at the DAU (Urban Planning Department) of Paris, at the beginning of the the eighties. I realized there how irrealistic it was to consider planning as a static blueprint �"which it was at this period�"; a standardized planning that didn't considered the complexity of the urban human-environment interactions. This is the reason why I took advanced studies courses in Ecology at Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 6 University (MPhil in 1985). Thereafter I started running Praxis (an environment and impact studies agency) which I managed until 2000, when I become assoc. prof. at Paris 4 Sorbonne after a Ph D (sum. cum laud.) in environmental planning. Projects: Within the Sustainability Science Research Center at Reims my researches focus on updating the planning pratices and theory so as to include sustainability and environmental justice issues, simultaneously. This requires to consider planning as an adaptative processes subject to continuous adjustments. To be meaningful, this updating has to address primarily political choices and polices objectives, instead of focusing on technical procedures. Sustainable policies are supposed to meet simultaneously spatial equity (environmental justice, living conditions) and intergenerational equity (preservation of the resources and protection of the planet for the generations to come). Too often, it doesn't work this way. One crucial issue at the core of my researches is to determine arbitration rules between the two equities within sustainanle policies. The point is not to reduce the arbitration rules to an algorithm, but rather to address the social process of decision making. Besides, my research addresses sustainable development and climate change implementation. I develop this as the holder of a Chair at the Université de Montreal. In an ANR (National Research Agency) Ville Durable (Sustainable City) program, I discuss the role of urban configuration and land use to achieve Local Plans for the Climate. I also am the director of a PIRVE program "Transition to sustainability considered at a regional level". I consider these issues at a larger scale with the GICC2 program EXCLIM (Climatic Exiles) of the MEEDDM (French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development) that I coordinate. In this program I try to fathom Hurricane Katrina IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) future in relation with Sustainable New Orleans reconstruction project. These programs are the backbone of a longer-term endeavour I lead with the BABEL group "Building sustainable development key notions": building a consistent theoretical framework for sustainable development.
Prof. Mancebo recommends:
Ostrom E., 2009, "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems", Science, vol. 325, pp. 419-422. Mitchell R. B., Clark W. C., Cash D. W., Dickson N. M., 2006, Global environmental assessments: Information and influence. MIT Press.
Prof. Mancebo has (co)authored:
Mancebo F., 2009, "Des développements durables. Quel référentiel pour les politiques de développement durable en Europe ?", Cybergeo, European Journal of Geography, n° 438, rubrique"espace, société, territoire". The reason why it is so difficult to build an operational framework to sustainable development lies in the fact that sustainable development never happens out of the blue. This paper tries to figure out how such a framework can be imagined from three criteria: the type of governance, the type of sustainability and definition of the resources. It supposes abandoning the unique and universal sustainable development's myth, and to replace it by plural sustainable developments. European Union is a good target to focus on in order to define those sustainable developments, since the EU proposes an European strategy for sustainable development that European countries, regions or local governments convert into heterogeneous policies. Local sustainable policies, far from simply implementing European Union recommendations, adapt them to the local interests, local cultures and previous codes or policies. Eventually, these local issues will often antagonize, as it appears in cross-border pollution or imported sustainability conflicts. We can distinguish three types of problems when trying to make those local policies consistent with the sustainable strategy promoted by the European Union. First, the programs feasibility is often compromised by poor coordination between different decision levels (states, regions, cities, local governments), each one with its priorities and its strategic position. Moreover, many local governments are unable to transcend their old sectorial organization, now inconsistent with the global and systemic approach, specific to sustainable development policies. Finally, people's participation, whether with a "favorable outcome" or not, is not easy to steer: either, residents and communities don't get really involved and it is a failure; or they get fully involved, which implies new procedures and more complex relations within local governments that are unprepared to such tasks, which eventually block all the initiatives.
http://www.cybergeo.eu/index21987.html
Willing to be mentor to Sustainability Science Fellows
This Network Member is classified within these Core Themes:
Health and Environment
Environment
Cities
Sustainability processes and causation
Methods and models
Observations
Energy
Poverty and Hunger
Global Partnerships
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