In 2022, seven new PhD subjects with a focus on Europe and comparative studies

In 2022, seven new PhD candidates have started working at the CEE. This new, international class is focusing on comparative policy issues with a European backdrop.

Three doctoral students have started a thesis funded by a Cifre contract (PhD theses carried out jointly in a university laboratory and a company, non profit or public administration):

• Marta Tramezzani joined the CEE in January 2022 for a thesis on "the movement of energy communities in urban areas", under the supervision of Richard Balme. Under contract with the City of Paris (Direction de la transition écologique et du climat), she is investigating the way in which citizens and public actors interact in the co-construction of public energy transition policies, by comparing the cases of Paris, Milan and Barcelona.

• Since September, Arno Lizet has been working with the association "1000 cafés", which aims to revitalise rural areas in France through the provision of multi-service cafés. In his thesis under the supervision of Florence Faucher and Laurie Boussaguet, he is evaluating the social impact and the consequences in terms of political participation of this programme.

• Théodore Tallent is a PhD student under the supervision of Florence Faucher since September, in co-supervision with the University of Cambridge. His thesis on the acceptability of the low-carbon transition through territories, especially rural areas, in France and the UK, is being carried out in partnership with Elabe, a public opinion expert. Through this work, he hopes to contribute to the debate around a "just transition" in Europe.

A thesis started in September as part of the Franco-German project UnequalMand, which focuses on how social groups are targeted by election pledges. Under the supervision of Isabelle Guinaudeau and Emiliano Grossman, Selma Sarenkapa is interested in how the media in France and Germany construct (or not) a deserving image of these target groups, influencing their legitimacy to claim favourable public policies.

The other three theses are funded by Sciences Po doctoral contracts:

• Under the title "A conflicting climate? A comparative study of national elected officials' responses to climate change in Western Europe', Malo Jan studies how elected officials in different national parliaments in Europe deal with the climate issue and the conflicts that this generates between and within political parties. His thesis is supervised by Emiliano Grossman.

• Chiao Li is preparing a thesis on the transformation of electoral participation and political preferences across generations in Europe, under the supervision of Laura Morales. His work attempts to understand changing electoral dynamics between national and European Parliament elections, as well as evolving long-term determinants of voters' preferences.

• Supervised by Jan Rovny, Luis Sattelmayer studies how mainstream parties in France, Germany and the UK compete and position themselves with regard to the salient issues of populist radical right parties, such as immigration.

2022 was also marked by five PhD defences: congratulations to our new PhDs, Clément Claret, Roberto Rodriguez, Aifang Ma, Denys Gorbach and Arnault Barichella!