International networking: an important milestone for the Post-Growth Innovation Lab

Networking with other international centres is a very important part of the group's activities. In 2024, members of the group carried out research visits to 8 centres in 5 different countries and 9 foreign researchers visited us.

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This year, our researchers have made visits to various centres and countries, including Rikkyo University in Japan (our director Mario Pansera is there these weeks), the Università Degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope and the Scuola Normale Superiore in Italy, Peking University in China, the Institute for Digital Cooperative Economy in the USA and the Centro de Investigaçao do território, transportes e ambiente - CITTA in Portugal, to name but a few. We also received visits from researchers from Finland, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Italy, Germany and Belgium over the course of the year.

All this in a year in which the Post-Growth Innovation Group was responsible for the joint organisation of the 10th International Degrowth Conference and the 15th Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE), two of the most important international events in these fields, attended by more than 1200 people.

International networking has thus established itself as one of the Group's cornerstones.

  • My stay at CITTA (Centro de Investigação do Território, Transportes e Ambiente), Porto, began on 1 January 2024 and will end on 31 December 2025. During this time, I have been able to collaborate with colleagues at the research centre in many ways and will continue to do so.

    Recently, UVigo and CITTA jointly applied for cascade funding under the European Reinforcing Project and our proposal, called CoBlue, was selected and will be funded, allowing us to implement the project from 1 January. This is an important milestone that strengthens the collaboration between the two institutions and has been possible thanks to my research stay.

    I also had the opportunity to participate in other activities, such as the seminar-workshop I gave for the CITTA team in January to explore the concepts of efficiency and sufficiency in the context of the city - an experience I was later able to repeat with Master's students. Also, since the beginning of the year, I have been collaborating with other colleagues from my research group with António Ferreira, a researcher at CITTA and co-supervisor of the thesis of one of my PhD students, to write a scientific article on hegemonic struggles in ecological transition. The article has already been submitted to a scientific journal.

    Brais SuárezPosdoctoral Researcher

  • Brussels was at the beginning of my PhD, when I was working on the ExPliCit project. As it was my first exposure to the academic world, it was a good experience, because everything I was doing was new. For the project, I worked on a literature review, which was important to learn the basics for what I had to do later for my dissertation. On the other hand, the stay helped me to socialise with my project colleagues in Brussels, with whom we worked together several times during the year. Ultimately, these kind of stays, both when I am away and when we host someone, make me feel the internationalisation of the world of research and I am starting to build an international network of contacts very early on in my academic career, which I feel very lucky about. 

    Aitor AlonsoPredoctoral Researcher

  • I was in Naples during the first two months of this course, October and November. The stay is part of the secondments organised as part of ExPliCit. As a doctoral student who is only in the second year, I consider myself lucky to have had such an experience. My stay at the CNA, an association of small and medium-sized enterprises, was very enriching both professionally and personally. During the time I was there, I also had the opportunity to visit the university and Professor Passaro, as well as spend time with other colleagues such as Serena Kraiser and Matteo Tavano. On a more personal level, these months allowed me to experience Italian culture and interact with people who were in the same situation as me but from other countries. By chance, I was lucky enough to meet other PhD students from other places and fields of knowledge, with whom debating and chatting proved incredibly interesting.

    Ana GarcíaPredoctoral Researcher