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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Torta, Riccardo; Finardi, Marco Andrea; Turinayo, Abigail; Semaganda, Victor Muwonge; Gobetti, Marco |
| Abstract: | This meta-research originates from two experiences of the first two authors, who respectively worked on a Humanitarian Design (HD) project in Uganda with Design Without Borders and on a Design for Social Innovation (DSI) project in Italy with Polimi DESIS Lab. Similar tensions emerged from both contexts regarding the relationship between the design teams and the communities engaged, highlighting the risk of perpetuating systemic oppression and epistemic injustice. To explore these imbalances, the teams were engaged in two sets of sessions, activating reflexivity on social structures embedded in their practices, to uncover potential dynamics rooted in coloniality and power. Where the Ugandan HD project served as a testbed for the approach and three reflexive tools, the sessions within the Italian project confirmed the initial proposition, showing the potentially broad impact of the application of reflexivity on oppressive dynamics within DSI projects. This experiment uncovered the risks entailed by engaging with local communities, raised issues about urbanity and rurality, different forms of knowledge and models of development, challenging the conception of modernity and recognising these foundational elements of coloniality even in a European context. Considering the exploratory nature of this research, the intent is to provide grounding for future critical inquiries within the wider DSI community, demonstrating the need to rethink current design practices from a liberatory and relational perspective. |
| Date: | 2026–08–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:463sj_v1 |
| By: | Arfa, Fatemeh Hedieh |
| Abstract: | Adaptive reuse of heritage buildings requires stakeholders, and more specifically, architects to navigate interdependent questions of heritage significance, contemporary function, environmental performance, community benefit, financial feasibility, and approval of other stakeholders (developers, investors, and regulators). Process models can structure these questions, yet conventional validation methods reveal only part of how practitioners move between them under constraint. This paper presents the design and pilot testing of Architect's Design Challenge, a tabletop serious-game prototype developed to explore professional decision-making in adaptive reuse and to examine the practical legibility of the Effective Adaptive Reuse of Heritage Buildings (EARHB) process model. Players progress through six stations, allocate limited resources, select action cards, respond to stakeholder requirements, and construct a design proposition using four predefined project-value categories represented by coloured components. Two formative test rounds, involving students and architects, were organised around introduction, gameplay, and debriefing. The tests indicated that the prototype could stimulate explicit discussion of priorities, sequencing, resource allocation, and trade-offs. They also revealed a central design tension: abstraction supported strategic play but sometimes weakened correspondence with professional practice, particularly for expert players. The study contributes a transparent mapping between research constructs and game mechanics, identifies requirements for future validation, and shows how serious gaming could make selected moments of value recognition, translation into design choices, negotiation, and revision observable within a simulated decision pathway. The evidence is exploratory. It does not establish learning effects, behavioural validity, or transfer to real projects. |
| Date: | 2026–08–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vp6a2_v1 |
| By: | Nowzohour, Laura; Noailly, Joëlle |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether environmental policy uncertainty undermines clean-technology investment in the United States by weakening policy-induced investment incentives. Using quarterly project-level data on U.S. greenfield investments from 2007Q1 to 2019Q1, combined with novel news-based indices that separately measure environmental policy salience and environmental policy uncertainty, we find that policy uncertainty substantially offsets the positive investment effects of environmental policy. At the aggregate level, a one-standard-deviation increase in environmental policy uncertainty eliminates roughly 75% of the policy-induced increase in the number of cleantech projects and around 50% of the increase in capital expenditure. The deterrence effect is substantially stronger for foreign than for domestic investors, consistent with greater informational frictions facing cross-border capital. These effects persist for at least two years following an uncertainty shock and are corroborated by country- and firm-level analyses, though results for capital expenditure are less robust at disaggregated levels. The findings imply that policy credibility is a first-order determinant of clean investment: an environmental policy framework that is ambitious but perceived as unstable may fail to mobilize the capital it is designed to attract. JEL Classification: Q58, F21, F23, E22 |
| Keywords: | environmental policy, foreign direct investment, green investment, policy uncertainty |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20263278 |
| By: | Bendiek, Annegret; Holste, Svenja |
| Abstract: | To date, the Arctic has played only a minor role in European efforts to achieve digital sovereignty. Yet digital infrastructure in the High North is a key component of this endeavour. The European Union's (EU) Arctic Strategy, which is due to be updated this year, should therefore not be limited to traditional security issues. This is particularly true in light of hybrid threats in the Baltic Sea region. Of particular importance are European projects to expand Arctic submarine cable infrastructure, which constitute critical infrastructure. However, these initiatives require an ambitious EU that recognises its capacity to deliver innovation and sustainability in the development of green technologies. |
| Keywords: | European Union (EU), Arctic Strategy, digital sovereignty, submarine cable infrastructure, critical infrastructure, Arctic Council, West Arctic Passage, Polar Passage, Polar Connect, Far North Fiber |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:swpcom:343141 |