The Caisse des Dépôts publishes our students’ study

With the support of the Caisse des Dépôts’ Institute for Research, six students from two Master’s programmes - Regional and Urban Strategy and Governing Ecological Transitions in European Cities - did their capstone on how citizens engage in the development and implementation of green recovery plans. The Caisse des Dépôts has published their study.

In addressing the topic, “Green recovery plans: catalysts for citizen engagement in transitions or indicators of a disconnect with local dynamics?”, their study offers an overview of engagement in its various forms, investigates how those forms resonate in local and regional action on the green transition, and reflects more deeply on how an institution such as the Caisse des Dépôts can better understand the dynamics of local engagement by re-examining its role in the regions. Above all, the study involved dissecting the components of local engagement to better understand the realities, needs and visions of the local and regional ecological transition—the underlying objective for the Caisse des Dépôts being to propose projects through its recovery plans that are coherent as well as effective.

Pia Benguigui, Marianne Carre, Cécile Drouet d'Aubigny, Esther Lasar, Morgane Ollier and Hugo Terrasse worked on this project over the 2020/2021 academic year. It clearly reflects the context of the health crisis, during which the government was offering fiscal stimulus packages. €30 billion of the €100 billion national recovery plan for France was allocated to decarbonising the economy, including €26 billion managed by the Caisse des Dépôts to stimulate the ecological transition at the local and regional levels (particularly through loans to local authorities or direct project investments). >In addition to the health and economic crises underway, the students wanted to study the environmental and democratic crises facing French society today.

Read the publication (FR)