Posted 22 June 2010
Governments face ‘significant challenges’ in future approaches to regulation, says Minister
The Minister for Natural Resources and the Knowledge Society, Conor Lenihan, T.D. officially opened a major UCD-hosted international conference on regulation on 17 June 2010.
Addressing conference delegates, the Minister noted the “significant challenges” facing governments across the world in their future approaches to regulation. He pointed to the need for regulation not only in the financial arena but also in other important areas such as the environment, energy, food and social needs.
During his opening address, the Minister also cautioned that: “It is vital to avoid knee-jerk reactions to the shocks we have experienced in the past couple of years. While economic circumstances require decisive action by governments everywhere, this is also a time for reflection and considered analysis of our models of governance and how we get things done in the interests of our economies, our environment, our citizens. There are notable risks in this area - Governments may decide to re-exert control over regulatory agencies and end up neutering their ability to ensure competitive markets; light touch regulation risks the kind of shocks we’ve been exposed to in recent times. It’s important that we achieve a balance in this area”.
Pictured from left: Dr Niamh Hardiman, UCD School of Politics and International Relations; Dr Hugh Brady, President of UCD; Professor Jacint Jordana, Pompeu Fabre University, and Co-Chair ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance; Professor Colin Scott, Professor of EU Regulation and Governance, UCD School of Law, Conference Chair; Professor Adrienne Héritier, European University Institute (keynote lecturer); Mr Conor Lenihan TD, Minister for Natural Resources and the Knowledge Society; Professor Brigid Laffan, Principal, UCD College of Human Sciences; Mr Paul Gallagher, Attorney General; Professor David Levi-Faur, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Co-Chair ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance
The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) conference, ‘Regulation in the Age of Crisis’ hosted by University College Dublin (UCD) ran from 17-19 June 2010. Over 200 delegates from more than 30 countries attended the conference to debate the nature of regulation, its failures and its potential across a spectrum that covers politics, law, sociology, history and economics.
“Scholarly networks which encourage us to raise our ambitions and to talk to a global community of academics are of vital importance to UCD’s objective of being a leading European research-intensive university," said Dr Hugh Brady, President of UCD, welcoming the European Consortium of Political Research Standing Group on Regulatory Governance to Dublin and to UCD.
"The Consortium has significantly boosted international collaboration in building this field of inquiry. It boasts among its members not just many of the leading scholars of regulation and governance in Europe and beyond, but also PhD students and emergent scholars who will be the next generation of academic leaders."
The central themes for the ECPR Conference included: regulatory causes of and responses to the financial crisis; environmental regulation and sustainability incorporating climate change issues post-Copenhagen, reactions by different countries to oil spill disasters and water regulation; risk and technology regulation; food safety and food quality; the regulation of network industries; and non-state regulation.
Participants included some of the most distinguished scholars and authors in the field of regulation.
Keynote speakers included:
Adrienne Héritier, Professor of Comparative and European Public Policy at the European University Institute, Florence, who presented a paper entitled ‘Self-Regulation by Industry in the Shadow of Hierarchy: Emergence, Effectiveness and Legitimacy’.
Michael Moran, WJM Mackenzie Professor of Government at the University of Manchester who presented a paper entitled: ‘Regulation, Self-Regulation and the Financial Crisis’.
Other speakers included:
Justin O’Brien, Professor of Corporate Governance at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Australian National University in Canberra; Jonathan Koppell, Professor of Politics and Management, School of Management, Yale University; Jacint Jordana, Professor of Political and Social Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain); and Colin Scott, Professor of EU Regulation and Governance at the UCD School of Law.
UCD Centre for Regulation and Governance
The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Conference was jointly hosted by the UCD School of Law; the UCD School of Politics and International Relations; the UCD School of Business; the UCD Global Finance Academy; the Institute of Public Administration; and Trinity College Dublin
UCD has a strong and growing track record of research and outreach addressing such issues as regulatory capacity, transnational private regulatory regimes, changing structure of governance institutions, and the comparative governance of small states in the EU.
In order to further develop capacity for research UCD has recently approved the establishment of the interdisciplinary UCD Centre for Regulation and Governance. Its first Director is Colin Scott, Professor of EU Regulation and Governance at the UCD School of Law. Dr Niamh Hardiman of the UCD School of Politics and International Relations is also centrally involved in the establishment and research direction of the Centre. Initial members will be drawn from six UCD schools and three UCD colleges (Business and Law, Human Sciences and Life
Sciences).
The new Centre is strongly committed not only to excellence in research, but also to further developing engagement in the design and dissemination of research with key national and international stakeholders across government, business and civil society.
European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)
The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), which celebrates its fortieth anniversary in 2010, is an independent scholarly association. It supports and encourages the training, research and cross-national co-operation of political scientists throughout Europe and beyond. It has approx 350 European institutional members and associate members in over 40 countries, from as far afield as New Zealand and Japan.
These members form a network of thousands of individual political scientists, international relations and European studies specialists. The ECPR’s activities include organising workshops, roundtables, conferences and summer schools; publishing journals (including several of the leading journals on comparative European politics), books and articles and it provides a comprehensive information source to its members through its website and online databases.
The ECPR has almost 40 Standing Committees. It is the Standing Group on Regulatory Governance which attended Dublin for the first time for its Third Biennial Conference - ‘Regulation in the Age of Crisis’.
(Produced by UCD University Relations)
