MU - Masaryk University

Masaryk University (MU), the second largest Czech university, has an internationally respected research program, state-of-the-art infrastructure and 38000 research results visible on the European scale.

The faculty of Social Studies is continuously receiving top ratings among social sciences faculties. Research activities grant a budget of about 14 million Euros to the Faculty with 160+ academic publications per year. The Department of Environmental Studies, with background in environmental sociology (Prof. Librová, As. Prof. Stibral, Ulčák, PhD.) and environmental evaluation (Činčera, PhD., Krajhanzl, PhD.), takes as its starting point the historic and cultural causes of the environmental crisis and looks for possible solutions in the areas of social, economic, legal and political studies and their interactions, considering also natural sciences approach. There are numerous projects in progress in the Department, administered by 3 project coordinators funded by EC ECP to upgrade the teaching and study performance (15 mil. CZK), Social and financial metabolism of selected local food systems or participation in ICNP SD. The department has a long-standing and fruitful cooperation with Austrian and German universities, Telemark University College, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.

Website

http://humenv.fss.muni.cz/english

Location

Masaryk University

Joštova 10,

CZ-602 00 Brno

Czech Republic

Members:

Christian Kerschner holds a master’s degree in business and economics from the University of Vienna and a masters and a doctorate from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He studies the phenomenon of Peak-Oil and the respective vulnerabilities of economies, attitudes towards technology, alternatives to the paradigm of economic growth. His paper proposing a connection between the steady state economy and economic degrowth has been widely cited in the field of ecological economics and he has just finished co-editing a long awaited special issue on Degrowth & Technology. In MEDEAS, he focuses on input-output modelling of the effects of the low-carbon transition.

Martin Černý is a PhD student at MU. He specializes on combining input-output analysis with participatory modelling approaches in relation to post-carbon and post-growth transformation. His research interest includes analysing changes in employment and functional time-use allocation necessary to deal with a zero growth or a de-growing economy. In MEDEAS he focuses on methods of constructing future input-output tables for the post-carbon economy.

Christian Kimmich is a researcher at MU. He holds a PhD and MSc from HU Berlin, where he studied agricultural engineering and economics. Before joining MU, Christian worked at the Swiss Federal Institute WSL of ETH Zürich. He was a visiting scholar at the Ostrom Workshop. His main research focus is on natural resource management and related infrastructures. In MEDEAS, Christian focuses on micro- and macroeconomic aspects, integrating input-output structures.