Environmental Governance and Territorial Development

The Environmental Governance and Territorial Development Hub/Institute (GEDT) is a research centre which plays a pivotal role in the Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE) – where it is one of the four Research Hubs which bring together all its scientific and legal researchers – and in the Geneva School of Social Sciences (G3S). GEDT is a research institute of the School, linking everyone with research interests in environmental and territorial development. It also works in close collaboration with the Faculty of Law, since some of the Hub’s researchers also belong to that Faculty.

The Hub/Institute has 12 professors and some 50 researchers from a range of disciplines: law, geography, political economy, political science and sociology.

Members of the Environmental Governance and Territorial Development Hub/Institute undertake research in nine cross-disciplinary areas, grouped under three major themes: environmental governance (governance of natural resources, the environment and international relations, environmental security, risk), sustainability (sustainable development, adaptation and resilience) and territorial development (theory and practice of urban planning, imagining territories, residential practices and lifestyles). GEDT is also developing a series of tools to foster interdisciplinary approaches and for spatial analysis, as well as information systems. 

Within the ISE and its five cross-cutting themes – Water, Climate, Biodiversity, Energy, Regions and cities – the Hub promotes close transdisciplinary collaboration with the natural and physical sciences and with economics, in both research and teaching.

The Hub/Institute’s teaching activities include delivery of the Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning (MDT HES-SO/UNIGE- Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning). It also plays a leading partnership role in the Masters in Environmental Sciences (MUSE - Master of Science of Environmental Sciences) and in the Certificate in Geomatics, as well as facilitating various Continuing Education programmes.