The Precautionary Principle: Governance of Innovation and Innovations in Governance

The purpose of this course is to explore challenges and possible ways forward for the effective and appropriate application of the precautionary principle in sustainability governance. It will bring together a solid and diverse group of scholars and practitioners with expertise on the precautionary principle, risk assessment, and management, environment and health research, science and technology studies, the governance of innovation, environmental governance, and long-term transitions to sustainability. The course is designed as a strategic knowledge and experience-sharing course at the intersection between a research-oriented course and a professional development course, dedicated to collaborative exploration and learning. It will provide intensive research training, but also allow for policy discussions in a variety of sectors and contexts and, through a knowledge co-creation approach, help to identify and find solutions to course-related issues in the participants’ research, policy, or business application fields.
 
This course is the third edition of the highly successful 2015 and 2016 SUN courses on the same topic. The faculty is composed of renowned and high-profile scholars and practitioners with broad experience in interdisciplinary research and integrative policy-making. The course is a part of the EEAcademy – the new educational initiative of the European Environmental Agency, and its team includes the Executive Director of the Agency, the former Senior Advisor of EEA and 'Late Lessons' project leader, the Chair of the Scientific Committee of EEA, as well as professors from renowned Universities and Business Schools. Participants will come from a variety of backgrounds (including researchers as well as practitioners from public bodies, NGOs, and businesses). The Course will give them a unique opportunity to (i) increase their theoretical and practical expertise on issues surrounding the precautionary principle; (ii) train in inter- and transdisciplinary research and integrative policy praxis; and (iii) build a strong network with other participants and faculty.
 
Rationale:
The precautionary principle is a key principle of environmental governance. It features prominently in many international environmental policy processes, texts, and treaties and in the national strategies and laws of many countries. 
 
It is one of the four environment principles in the Treaty of the European Union, in which article 191,§2 states that Union policy on the environment "shall be based on the precautionary principle and on the principles that preventive action should be taken, that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay". Together these 4 principles –precaution, prevention, polluter-pays, and rectification of damage at source– are central to managing risk to the environment, human health, and well-being. The most problematic of these principles is without doubt the precautionary principle. 
 
The precautionary principle poses challenges to environmental science, environmental governance and praxis because it applies to 'situations of scientific complexity, uncertainty and ignorance, where there may be a need to act in order to avoid, or reduce, potentially serious or irreversible threats to health and/or the environment, using an appropriate strength of scientific evidence, and taking into account the pros and cons of action and inaction and their distribution' (see the working definition of the precautionary principle proposed by the European Environment Agency – EEA 2013, p. 681). As a tool to manage risks, uncertainties, and ignorance in complex social-ecological systems, it is a core element of governance for a transition toward sustainability.
 
The principle is subject to a variety of interpretations, at the heart of major controversies and the target of serious attacks, sometimes because of misinterpretations, sometimes because of the vested interests it may be thought to disturb.
 
As shown by the seminal work of the European Environment Agency in the two 'Late Lessons from Early Warnings' reports (EEA 2001, 2013) there are still many open and pressing questions about the precautionary principle and its application, ways of doing research, science-policy-society interfaces, the governance of innovations and risk governance in the framework of sustainability transitions. And, in the current political context, notably in the European Union, there is a need for intellectual rigor around the concept, both from a research and a praxis point of view.