CSS

Civil society and its organisations (CSO) play a vital role in the implementation of sustainable development. Civil society actors exhibit special features, they are to a large degree driven by visions or ideals, place a focus on common action (thus balancing individual and collective goals), participate in and initiate discourses about SD in society, enhance social capital, and share a non-economical (non-efficiency driven) world view.

In the FP7 project CSS "Civil Society on Sustainability", researchers and CSOs will work together in fostering transdisciplinary networks and research partnerships in France, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia. The main objectives of the CSS project are to link civil society with research activities on sustainable development on a European scale. The project should foster networks between civil society and research organisations, while developing a civil society oriented research agenda for sustainable development. For this aim three tandems of one CSO and one research institute each were built.

The first phase of the project will involve CSO experts in developing a CSO specific research gap list and prioritize them, as well as helping CSO-experts to contextualise theoretical findings into local contexts.

The second phase of the project will have participatory action research as its main focus. Specific sub-projects, as specified in the outcome of Phase 1 will be carried out, with CSO and expert researchers having different emphases. The CSOs are responsible for the main part of implementation (“field work”), especially the implementation of the instruments developed earlier. The expert researchers will assist the CSOs in doing so, with meta-research on the efficacy and efficiency of implementation efforts, as well as laying the ground for a theoretical framework on which the later to be developed CSO guidebook will rest.