We are pleased to announce the 2nd Seminar Series on Governance, Institutions, and Sustainability jointly hosted by the Centre for Political Economy and Institutional Studies and by the Birkbeck Responsible Business Centre, within the Birkbeck Business School.

In our rapidly evolving world, the intricate web connecting governance, institutions, and sustainability has become increasingly prominent. We invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners to enhance this very important debate and to join us in exploring the profound intertwining of these critical elements at our upcoming seminar series.

A series of interconnected crises encompassing socio-economic, political, humanitarian, ecological, and health-related challenges affected the EU territories in the last decade. Those crises were particularly visible in border areas: not only as border territories are often marginal with respect to national economic and political centres, but also because borders were very often mobilized and re-framed in response to those crises, in different ways. The question the presentation wishes to address is if, and to what extent, the multilevel governance system in EU internal border areas was challenged by recent crises, and with what consequences. Starting from an overview of the EU framework, the presentation will focus on the analysis of three Italian Alpine land borders, based on secondary sources and interviews with key stakeholders, with the aim of shedding a light on the complexity of border governance and its evolution in times of polycrisis. The research is part of a wider ongoing research project dedicate to the evolution of Italian borderscapes;

More information is available at: https://www.italianborderscapes.polimi.it

Raffaella Coletti (National Research Council of Italy, Institute for the Study of Regionalism, Federalism and Self-Government, Rome, Italy)