Starting in 2018, the MARIPOLDATAbase has systematically catalogued Collaborative Event Ethnography (CEE) observations covering the entire BBNJ (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction) negotiations until June 2023. By providing primary data on the whole negotiation process, the MARIPOLDATAbase supports empirical scholarly work on diverse aspects of international marine biodiversity politics.

Alice Vadrot, principle investigator of the ERC funded research project MARIPOLDATA (2018-2024)  will present the database, its key features, and how it can be used to trace and map the BBNJ process. Using examples drawn from MARIPOLDATA research, she will show how the MARIPOLDATA team collected and used this data — on actors and alliances, statement length, treaty text, positions, networks, statements, concepts, and meeting formats — to analyse various aspects of agreement-making.

Speaker

Alice Vadrot, University of Vienna

Political scientist Alice Vadrot has been Associate Professor for International Relations and Environment at the Department of Political Science since February 2021. She completed her doctorate on the World Biodiversity Council in 2013 and returned to the University of Vienna in 2017 after a two-year research stay at Cambridge University as an Erwin Schrödinger Fellow of the Austrian Research Fund (FWF). Her focus is on researching the interface between science and politics in international environmental diplomacy and developing new methodological approaches to examining the role of knowledge in international negotiations. In 2018, the political scientist received an ERC Starting Grant for her project MARIPOLDATA (2018-2024), in which she and her research group are mapping negotiations on a new agreement to protect the high seas and the development of the scientific field of marine biodiversity. As part of the EU project MARCO-BOLO (2022-2026), she is investigating the need for data in biodiversity policy and nature conservation practice. Vadrot is a member of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), the Mission Board of the EU Water Mission, the Management Board of the Environment and Climate Hub of the University of Vienna and the management team of the Austrian Biodiversity Council.

Discussant

Kari De Pryck, Lecturer at the Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva

Moderator

James Hollway, Co-Director, Global Governance Centre and Associate Professor of International Relations/Political Science, Geneva Graduate Institute

The event is co-hosted with the Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES)