Prof. dr. Erik Paredis
Throughout my career, my main interest has always been in a critical analysis of sustainability (in its broad sense of ecological limits, justice, quality of life, democracy) in combination with a constructive exercise of developing policies and approaches for a more sustainable, just society. My research interests include the politics and governance of sustainability transitions; the role of civil society and social movements; democracy in science and technology; North-South issues of sustainability; and de- and post-growth political economy. Empirically, over the last years a lot of this research has addressed the circular economy in a broad sense, ranging from CO2 recovery for sustainable fuels and chemicals, over circular plastics, to product-service systems, repair and degrowth inspired circularity initiatives. In the past, I worked on topics such as climate politics, sustainable food, housing and building, ecological debt and sustainable cities. A lot of this work would have been impossible without the collaboration with current and former PhD students such as Kasper Ampe, Ine Baetens, Irma Emmery, Abe Hendriks, Fernando Lit, Nur Gizem Yalcin, Lucas Remue and Jonas Van Gaubergen.
I am/was involved as promotor in several national and international, interdisciplinary research networks, often related to the circular economy, such as MEDIATE ‘Moderating Due Diligence through Intermediary Engagement’ (2025-2028), eLECTRO ‘Electrified conversion of plastic waste into olefins & downstream integration’ (2022-2026), SUNER-C ‘Sunergy Community and eco-system for accelerating the development of solar fuels and chemicals’ (2022-2025), C-PlaNeT 'Circular Plastics Network for Training' (EU-Marie Curie ITN 2020-2024), Energy-X (2019-2020), SuPER-W 'Resource, Product and Energy Recovery from Wastewater' (2016-2020), ITN Infinity 'Bioresource recovery from organo-biological residues and wastes' (2019-2024), IOF End-of-Waste (2019-2024), ITN SEDwise 'Sustainability education' (2015-2020). Other involvements in the past included the inter-university policy research centres 'Governance innovation’ (2016-2020), ‘Transitions for Sustainable Development’ (TRADO 2012-2017) and ‘Sustainable development’ (2007-2011).
I currently teach the course ‘Politics of Sustainability’ and supervise bachelor papers and master theses. I am an active member of the bottom-up Transition UGent network, am a member of the UGent sustainability commission, and president of the sustainability commission of the Faculty of social and political sciences. In the past, I have been active in socio-cultural transition networks such as Pulse (cultural sector) and Transitienetwerk Middenveld (civil society), and as a board member of Bond Beter Leefmilieu (environmental movement).
Mail: Erik.Paredis@UGent.be
Research Explorer: https://research.ugent.be/web/person/erik-paredis-0/en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-paredis-22104631/