The Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) has begun a CHF 2.5 million, three-year research programme to investigate how economic growth can be made consistent with environmental objectives.

The research programme will examine the incentives and impacts available to increase the use of wind and solar energy; hybrid and electric cars; as well as future technologies. Projects within the programme will explore innovation, diffusion and green growth; the role of multinational firms in spreading clean technologies; and clean energy technology diffusion and cost in developing countries.

The Innovation and Green Growth Programme will be carried out in partnership with researchers from the London School of Economics, the Harvard Kennedy School, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich, and the Universities of Capetown and Beijing.

The European Union, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Network for International Studies will fund the programme. Joelle Noailly, Research Associate at the CIES, will direct the research, with projects led by Professor Liliana Andonova, Head of the International Relations/Political Science Department at the Institute, and Tim Swanson, André Hoffmann Professor of Economics and Director of the CIES.

The research programme will run a series of annual workshops with its partners to report and debate results. The first will take place in Geneva in January 2014, with later events scheduled in Zurich, London and Lausanne.

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