Research

Key Public Policy Initiatives for Transition (KIPPT) 2024–2026

Contemporary societies face numerous, complex, and cross-cutting challenges that call into question the viability of our development model, its sustainability, and our ability to function as a society. Whether these changes are environmental and climate-related, demographic, political, or technological (particularly digital), they challenge our ways of life, as well as our models of development, production, consumption, work organization, education, healthcare, urban planning, and mobility. These changes present opportunities but also generate risks, particularly for the most vulnerable populations. They thus pose risks of social, political, and economic disruption that directly challenge the governance of our societies. Supporting the transition to new, more sustainable and equitable development models has become a challenge for public actors.

To meet this challenge, the Montpellier campus offers a dynamic, high-level research environment in the social sciences across a range of disciplines, including economics, law, political science, geography, education and training sciences, management, and sociology.

The goal of the Key Initiative on Public Transition Policies (KIPPT) is to enhance visibility and foster local, national, and international interactions among researchers at the Montpellier campus whose work in the social sciences relates to public transition policies. The aim is, on the one hand, to bring researchers together and establish a sustainable network. The KIPPT will thus help to drive and stimulate exchanges and synergies and to highlight the collective expertise of the Montpellier site on public transition policies. On this basis, the KIPPT also aims to foster a “science/society” relationship by serving as a bridge between researchers working on transition policies and public and civil society actors. To this end, various partners—including local authorities (notably the Occitanie Region and Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole), businesses, and associations—are involved in the project.

A broad and multidisciplinary definition of public transition policies

KIPPT advocates for a broad definition of public transition policies, centered on the three pillars of the I-site—feeding, protecting, and caring—and beyond. It approaches public policy, public action, and governance from a multidisciplinary perspective.

It brings together numerous laboratories from the I-Site Social Sciences cluster around three main areas of focus:

Priority Area 1: Foster collaboration among laboratories and disciplines on key sector-specific themes at the site, such as climate and energy transition, ecological transition, digital transformation, agricultural and food systems, mobility and transportation, and health…

Priority Area 2: Promote reflection on the coherence and coordination between public transition policies and integration issues. Particular attention is paid, on the one hand, to the cross-cutting issue of inequality and, on the other hand, to regional projects as vehicles for integration, with a view to addressing, in particular, the tensions between sectoral and regional approaches.

Priority Area 3: Address cross-cutting issues related to the governance of transitions.

  • Issues related to the design of public transition policies (PTPs), their public debate, and their evaluation
  • Challenges related to the implementation of PPTs: cooperation among stakeholders, sectors, and levels of government; funding; citizen and civil society participation; …
  • Issues of Conflict and Acceptability in Transition Policies
  • Issues related to the methods and tools used: cost-benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis, incentives, regulations, pricing, planning, trajectories, etc.
  • Issues related to changes in stakeholders’ perceptions, opinions, and behaviors in the face of transitions

Initiatives aimed at building a scientific community

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