Societal Goals Research Articles

Evaluating the value for money in procurement for EU-funded projects: the perspectives of Slovak regional and local authorities

Awarding public contracts using evaluation criteria that consider price and quality (MEAT) rather than the lowest price allows contracting authorities to pursue broader societal goals, thereby maximising the potential of value for money. This potential becomes even more important when procuring contracts funded by European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), which aim to promote environmental sustainability, encourage innovations, and support small and medium-sized enterprises. Despite this, there is a limited understanding of how public authorities adopt MEAT award criteria in procurement contracts co-funded by ESIF resources. Therefore, this paper investigates the effect of ESIF on adopting MEAT in the procurement practices of Slovak regional and local authorities. Using a unique dataset of below and above-threshold contracts, we find a positive effect of ESI co-funding on adopting MEAT criteria. However, this positive effect is significant only when projects are procured using more flexible and straightforward below-threshold procurement procedures. Accounting for prior experience and challenges of complying with above-threshold procurement procedures, the findings underline the importance of organisational capacity in navigating through burdensome procurement and ESIF regulations to obtain the best value using taxpayers’ money.

Convergence of Nanotechnology and Machine Learning: The State of the Art, Challenges, and Perspectives.

Nanotechnology and machine learning (ML) are rapidly emerging fields with numerous real-world applications in medicine, materials science, computer engineering, and data processing. ML enhances nanotechnology by facilitating the processing of dataset in nanomaterial synthesis, characterization, and optimization of nanoscale properties. Conversely, nanotechnology improves the speed and efficiency of computing power, which is crucial for ML algorithms. Although the capabilities of nanotechnology and ML are still in their infancy, a review of the research literature provides insights into the exciting frontiers of these fields and suggests that their integration can be transformative. Future research directions include developing tools for manipulating nanomaterials and ensuring ethical and unbiased data collection for ML models. This review emphasizes the importance of the coevolution of these technologies and their mutual reinforcement to advance scientific and societal goals.

The Mediating Impact of Organizational Innovation on the Relationship Between Fintech Innovations and Sustainability Performance

The paper explores the impact of digital payment systems, blockchain technology, and AI/machine learning on innovation and sustainability in financial organizations. As part of the analysis, the study has adopted an explanatory research design and has used SmartPLS in order to analyze the data collected from 230 professionals of different fields through a structured questionnaire. The results show positive effects of digital payment systems and blockchain technology on organizations’ innovations with the impact of digital payments being the most pronounced. Empirical results suggest that these technologies are important to improve sustainability performance, depending on measures of internal consistency and discriminant validity among the proposed constructs. Al, also machine learning, has the highest relevance with environmental sustainability, thereby underlining the importance and work of such measures. Based on the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory, the study also explains the need for the organization to assimilate these innovations to enhance the organizational operations, customer satisfaction, and compliance with the laws. The study highlights fintech’s potential to address environmental issues and enhance societal goals, but geographical limitations may obstruct its transportability.

Theoretical Frameworks for Integrating Sustainability Factors into Institutional Investment Decision-Making

This paper explores key theoretical frameworks instrumental in understanding the relationship between sustainability and institutional investment decisions. The study identifies and analyzes various theories, including Behavioral Finance Theory, Modern Portfolio Theory, Risk Management Theory, and others, to explain how sustainability considerations increasingly influence investment choices. By examining these frameworks, the paper highlights how investors integrate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors to optimize financial outcomes and align with broader societal goals.

Editorial on special issues: “regional nutrient management in the circular economy” & “nitrogen and carbon recycling: benefits from the stakeholders’ perspective”

AbstractThe intensification and specialization of global agriculture has led to a nutrient surplus resulting in regional environmental issues such as eutrophication and loss of biodiversity due to nutrient accumulation. Addressing these challenges requires a shift towards regional nutrient circularity, inspired by the principles of a circular economy, to create a more resource-efficient agricultural system. Circular agriculture, particularly in Europe, provides a model for sustainable nutrient management at various scales—local, regional, national and international. Existing technologies enable the production of fertilizers from secondary or waste streams and can improve nutrient use efficiency. The development of a market with transparency of supply and demand dynamics, standardized products, and reliable traceability is essential for the effective implementation of nutrient circularity. However, practical nutrient management takes place on a local level, with significant variability in environmental, economic, and social conditions at the farm and field levels due to differences in nutrient demand by crops or farm management, e.g. organic farming with often lower total nutrient intensity. Therefore, the successful development of a regional circular nutrient economy necessitates a stronger stakeholder perspective, emphasizing the importance of participatory research approaches. In addition to circularity, the efficiency of nutrient use from secondary fertilizers must be enhanced, and the broader food system must evolve towards more nutrient-efficient practices. This transformation will likely require adopting a planetary health diet that promotes both sufficiency and sustainability in nutrient use. Therefore, policy measures need to provide a clear regulatory framework at supranational (e.g. European Union) or national level, targeting environmental and societal goals, while at the same time supporting locally adaptable interventions through economic incentives and innovation support.

Adaptation of Aglycosylated Monoclonal Antibodies for Improved Production in Komagataella phaffii.

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are a major class of biopharmaceuticals manufactured by well-established processes using Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. Next-generation biomanufacturing using alternative hosts like Komagataella phaffii could improve the accessibility of these medicines, address broad societal goals for sustainability, and offer financial advantages for accelerated development of new products. Antibodies produced by K. phaffii, however, may manifest unique molecular quality attributes, like host-dependent, product-related variants, that could raise potential concerns for clinical use. We demonstrate here conservative modifications to the amino acid sequence of aglycosylated antibodies based on the human IgG1 isotype that minimize product-related variations when secreted by K. phaffii. A combination of 2-3 changes of amino acids reduced variations across six different aglycosylated versions of commercial mAbs. Expression of a modified sequence of NIST mAb in both K. phaffii and CHO cells showed comparable biophysical properties and molecular variations. These results suggest a path toward the production of high-quality mAbs that could be expressed interchangeably by either yeast or mammalian cells. Improving molecular designs of proteins to enable a range of manufacturing strategies for well-characterized biopharmaceuticals could accelerate global accessibility and innovations.

Social protection comparison across the world: a study of fiscal, structural and institutional performance discrepancies

PurposeSocial protection states the public-mandated (strategies and programmes) to address the vulnerability and risk among poor and near-poor households. Social protection must not only help people meet their basic needs but also contribute to the long-term well-being and broader societal goals of equity, social justice and empowerment. The role of social protection in achieving these goals has not been adequately documented. This paper examines the performance of the social protection mechanism from the perspective of the regional structural and institutional performance indicators. Social protection outlay dynamics are synthesized in the structural and institutional conducts.Design/methodology/approachA world regional comparability is made by considering the panel dataset for the time interval 1995–2020. In empirics, the unconditional and conditional ranks are constructed, and regression analyses are made subject to (1) the fiscal constraint of social protection, (2) structural performance indicators and (3) the institutional performance indicators of the targeted regions across the globe. The fully modified-ordinary least square (FM-OLS) method is used to construct the ranks.FindingsThe rank analysis demonstrates that the developed regions (i.e. Europe, Central Asia and North America) have relatively good welfare standards and fiscal capacity for social protection drives compared to the developing/underdeveloped regions (i.e. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). The structural/institutional performance indicators have shown their significance in determining/utilizing their budget for social protection and maintaining welfare standards. Interestingly, most developed regions are relatively reluctant to maintain the structural/institutional performance for the determination/execution of the funds for social protection as compared to the developing and underdeveloped regions.Practical implicationsIn policy discourse, this research suggests that governments must make some market operations to enhance their regions’ structural and institutional performance to get better outcomes of social protection spending in the form of attractive welfare standards.Originality/valueMultiple studies have been done considering the social protection dynamics at nano, micro and macro levels, while this study considered the mega dataset across the globe to analyse the social protection dynamics in consideration of structural and institutional performances.

The making and unmaking of demand for dairy and chicken in Norway: a systems of provision perspective

This study examines the supply and demand for chicken meat and fresh cow’s milk in Norway and argues that understanding demand as being co-constituted and interrelated with supply is crucial for reducing consumption. This study takes a constructivist systems of provision perspective to examine the chain of activities that links production and consumption. Analyzing how the use of chicken meat and fresh cow’s milk has evolved through socially and historically contingent processes in Norway, the article describes how these products became commonplace through state involvement, nutritional advice, companies, and consumers. The demand for liquid milk decreased in the 1980s, providing a rare insight into a system of provision in decline, although both government and industry actors wanted the situation to be otherwise. This study highlights that the milk-provision system failed to address the factors that contributed to the decline in milk consumption, which worsened the situation for dairy farmers. This is contrasted with the case of chickens, which represents a story of expanded demand through industrial intensification and new food norms. Under the presumption that a theory that explains an increase in demand must also be able to explain a decrease in demand, the analysis highlights the factors that caused a reduction in fresh milk consumption and the factors that led to growth in the demand for chicken meat. The article concludes that a constructivist perspective allows for a more nuanced understanding of the making and unmaking of demand through processes of alignment/misalignment with established political, economic, and societal goals.

Exploring Implicit Biases Towards Disadvantaged Groups: An IAT Approach

Disadvantaged groups, such as individuals with disabilities, orphans, and the impoverished, constitute a significant portion of the population across the globe. These groups encounter numerous challenges in their daily lives. A societal goal should be to support disadvantaged groups in keeping pace with social development and overcoming their hardships. Prejudice, exclusion, and discrimination persist, hindering the integration of these groups into mainstream society. This study seeks to examine public attitudes towards disadvantaged groups using the implicit association test (IAT), which measures implicit acceptance or exclusion based on reaction times. Compared to surveys or interviews, the IAT can more accurately reveal an individual’s unconscious biases and provide quantitative results. In this study, a set of ten positive attribute words, ten negative attribute words, ten conceptual words related to disadvantaged groups, and ten conceptual words related to non-disadvantaged groups were utilized. A total of twenty participants were recruited to attend the trial. The data analysis revealed a general tendency for implicit rejection of disadvantaged groups, with a D value of 0.92, which is very close to the maximum threshold of [-1, 1]. Moreover, the reaction time between the compatible group and incompatible group is significantly different. The results found no statistical difference in attitudes between females and males. The findings of this study highlight the implicit perceptions of disadvantaged groups and call for a societal shift away from exclusion, prejudice, and discrimination. It emphasizes the need for a more equitable, inclusive, and respectful approach towards these groups, advocating for a societal ethos that fosters understanding and support.

7.H. Round table: Advancing societal goals through health systems: Insights from the Renewed HSPA Framework

Abstract The purpose of this workshop, entitled ‘Advancing societal goals through health systems: Insights from the renewed HSPA framework,’ is to take a deeper look at the intricate relationships between health systems and broader societal objectives. We will dissect the contributions of health systems to societal well-being, a concept that stretches beyond mere economic growth to include social cohesion, environmental sustainability, and economic development. The session will examine the renewed global Health System Performance Assessment Framework, which serves as a tool for policymakers to better understand how health systems fit together and explains how they perform. This framework allows for a clearer interpretation of health data and provides a pathway to pinpoint health system issues and design that are most likely to enhance performance and resilience. The workshop will delve into the three dimensions of societal well-being-social cohesion, economic development, and environmental sustainability-nested within the HSPA framework. We will explore the health system’s role in advancing these dimensions, such as fostering community bonds, supporting economic growth through a healthy workforce, and contributing to the sustainable management of environmental resources. Integrating health system performance into societal goals is a practical obligation to create a resilient, cohesive, and economically robust society. This workshop will engage stakeholders in a discourse to translate this integration into multisectoral and actionable policies, aligning health system goals with societal aspirations for a sustainable future. This workshop will focus on: How health system assessments can capture contributions to societal goals, underpinning sustainable economic and environmental practices. Real-world case studies showcasing health systems’ role in fostering societal well-being and advancing public health policies. Interactive discussions will shed light on how health systems can be pivotal in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in the face of modern challenges such as climate change, demographic shifts, and economic pressures. Key messages • Health systems play a pivotal role in advancing societal well-being beyond traditional health outcomes. • The renewed HSPA framework is a robust tool for policymakers to align health system performance with broader societal goals. Speakers/Panelists Scott Greer University of Michigan, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Ann Arbor, USA Andrea Schmidt Austrian Public Health Institute, Vienna, Austria

Green beauty: examining factors shaping millennials’ attitudes toward organic personal care products in South Africa

PurposeThis study aims to explore the factors that influence millennials’ attitudes toward organic personal care products, focusing on the role of health consciousness, environmental concerns and quality perceptions.Design/methodology/approachAn electronic, self-administered survey was used to collect 377 responses. The data analysis utilized partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe findings reveal that environmental concerns, health consciousness and perceived behavioral control play a significant role in shaping millennials’ attitudes toward organic personal care products, while the perceived quality of organic personal care products significantly influences their purchase intentions.Practical implicationsThe results of this study provide valuable insights for personal care product manufacturers, retailers and marketers looking to target millennial consumers. By understanding the key factors that influence millennials’ attitudes and purchase intentions, marketers in the personal care product industry can tailor their strategies effectively.Social implicationsThe study’s findings inform strategies that promote healthier and more environmentally conscious consumer behavior. This aligns with broader societal goals of promoting sustainability and health consciousness, contributing to a more environmentally and socially responsible consumer culture.Originality/valueThe study’s contribution lies in its focused exploration of the interplay between health consciousness, environmental concerns and quality perceptions on millennials’ attitudes toward organic personal care products.

Strategic leadership for complex energy and oil & gas projects: A conceptual approach

Strategic leadership is essential for the success of complex energy and oil & gas projects, particularly those that involve large-scale, multidisciplinary teams navigating dynamic environments. This paper outlines a conceptual framework designed to enhance leadership effectiveness in managing such projects. The framework emphasises three key pillars: collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and regulatory alignment, which are critical for driving innovation and achieving operational success in the energy sector. In the context of collaboration, the framework advocates for fostering an inclusive team culture that encourages knowledge sharing and interdisciplinary cooperation. Effective leaders must cultivate relationships among diverse stakeholders, ensuring that varied perspectives are integrated into project planning and execution. This collaborative approach not only enhances problem-solving capabilities but also promotes a shared sense of ownership among team members. Stakeholder engagement is another crucial element of this leadership framework. Leaders must actively communicate with stakeholders—including government entities, local communities, and industry partners—to build trust and facilitate transparency. By understanding the needs and concerns of different stakeholders, leaders can align project objectives with broader societal and environmental goals, thereby minimizing resistance and enhancing project viability. Regulatory alignment is vital in the energy and oil & gas sectors, where compliance with industry regulations and environmental standards is paramount. The proposed framework guides leaders in navigating complex regulatory landscapes, ensuring that project strategies are aligned with legal requirements and best practices. This proactive approach mitigates risks associated with non-compliance, ultimately safeguarding the project's reputation and long-term sustainability. By integrating these pillars into their leadership practices, energy and oil & gas project leaders can drive innovation and operational excellence, even under challenging conditions. This conceptual approach underscores the importance of strategic leadership in managing complexity and achieving successful outcomes in the energy sector, paving the way for future advancements in project management methodologies. Keywords: Strategic Leadership, Energy Projects, Oil & Gas, Collaboration, Stakeholder Engagement, Regulatory Alignment, Operational Success, Innovation, Project Management Framework.

Art design interventions as a catalyst for sustainable development and infrastructure enhancement in intangible cultural heritage

This study explores the transformative role of art design interventions in the sustainable development and infrastructure enhancement of intangible cultural heritage, with a particular focus on honored brands. The research develops a framework that positions aesthetic and interactive art design interventions as pivotal components in revitalizing these brands. Aesthetic interventions translate the brand’s core philosophy, spirit, and values into compelling visual symbols, harmonizing cultural heritage with modern image design to elevate brand reputation and consumer preference. Interactive interventions enhance user experience, particularly among younger demographics, by integrating technological and entertainment-based engagement, thereby strengthening consumer loyalty and brand influence. The study further investigates how these art design interventions serve as catalysts for broader social development, contributing to the modern relevance and societal impact of time-honored brands. Additionally, it examines the impact of these interventions on sustainable development, societal support, and policy alignment. By weaving together these elements, the research underscores the critical importance of aligning brand strategies with societal goals, fostering environments where brands actively contribute to social welfare and sustainable growth. The findings offer valuable theoretical insights and practical strategies for the sustainable development of time-honored brands, providing clear directions for future research and practice.

Medical microbiological diagnosis of sports-accidental infections: promoting global peace, quality health, and entrepreneurship; through One Health approach

Most diseases acquired from sporting activities are accidental and often influenced by environmental factors. Neglecting the environment in disease prevention is counterproductive. This was evident during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when many sporting activities were halted. Medical laboratory diagnostics, particularly microbiological techniques, detect infectious agents and help contain diseases, thereby fostering a healthy environment for entrepreneurship. Using a One Health approach, this review highlights the dual role of sporting activities in promoting healthy living and facilitating the spread of pathogens. Although sports are widely recognized for enhancing health, the link between microbiology and sports, and their combined roles in promoting global peace, quality health, and entrepreneurship, is not well understood. To address this knowledge gap, the main objective of this review is to examine the relationship between sports-accidental infections and their impact on global peace, health, and entrepreneurship. This review employs a combination of life experiences, observations, and literature analysis, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data. The findings reveal various types of sports-accidental infections, including gastrointestinal, respiratory, skin, blood-borne, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative infections. The results indicate that microbial infections significantly impair athletic performance, often necessitating a “return-to-sport” strategy, where athletes must fully recover before resuming sports activities. Sports-accidental infections are also associated with sudden deaths among athletes on the field, negatively affecting health, peace, and entrepreneurship. Microbiology plays a significant role in diagnosing, treating, and managing sports-accidental infections. Through medical laboratory diagnostics, such as microbiological investigations, many pandemics, including COVID-19, have been contained. Identifying infectious agents enables effective preventive measures, helping restore peace and health, and supporting economic activities. The review offers eight recommendations that aim to foster a safer, healthier, and more resilient sports environment, benefitting individual athletes and promoting broader societal goals of health, peace, and economic growth.

The Application of New Media Marketing in Luxury Brand Communication

In the evolving landscape of luxury brand communication, this paper explores the transformative role of new media marketing in the dissemination and perception of luxury brands. Drawing insights from recent studies on social media impact on luxury consumption, it delves into how platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and WeChat have reshaped consumer behavior, particularly among the affluent and aspirational demographics. The paper also investigates the alignment of advertising strategies with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly focusing on women's empowerment, showcasing how luxury brands can leverage social responsibility to enhance their image and appeal. Strategies adopted by luxury brands in the new media era are analyzed, emphasizing the effectiveness of content marketing, influencer partnerships, and digital storytelling. Case studies highlight the success of brands like Gucci and Chanel in engaging audiences through innovative campaigns that blend heritage with modernity. An understanding of the nuances in different cultural contexts is crucial, as demonstrated by the need for sensitivity towards post-feminist ideologies in crafting messages of empowerment. The paper concludes by offering recommendations for luxury brands looking to optimize their new media marketing efforts. It suggests a balanced approach that integrates online and offline experiences, fosters community engagement, and prioritizes ethical and sustainable practices. By doing so, luxury brands can not only increase their market penetration but also contribute positively to societal goals, thereby ensuring long-term brand loyalty and relevance in an increasingly digital and socially conscious world.

Humanistic place leadership, cultural enhancement, and change in industrial districts

Drawing inspiration from the works of Fiorenza Belussi on multiple paths of development in local productive systems, the essay contributes to the ongoing debate on factors facilitating such transformations, focusing primarily on industrial districts (IDs) as open learning systems. With specific reference to the Italian context, this paper recalls the delicate balance between socio-cultural and economic elements within IDs transitioning towards new paths of development, crucial for facing the current technological and societal challenges. e essay proposes to look at the possible diffusion of humanistic management (HM) and cultural enhancement of economic strategies, as new triggering factors against lock-in conditions and tendencies toward degradation during phases of ID transformation. HM prioritizes the well-being of individuals and ethical decision-making, aligning with a broader societal purpose. Cultural enhancement, rooted in a common heritage, supports place identity, and suggests bases for multiple specializations. e convergence of HM and cultural enhancement within IDs may offer to renewed place-leaderships levers for strategies of transition pointing to sustainable paths that align with broader societal goals in an era of disrupting challenges.

Identifying opportunities and risks from green hydrogen: a framework and insights from a developing region in Brazil

ABSTRACT Green hydrogen is often considered as an opportunity for developing countries to advance their economies while contributing to the global goal of climate change mitigation. Many international cooperation initiatives are being established to promote green hydrogen projects in developing countries. However, the extent to which the benefits would be localized in developing countries remains uncertain. Additionally, the risks of a massive expansion of a green hydrogen industry, including potential trade-offs with other societal goals, have been largely overlooked. To address these gaps, this study proposes an analytical framework to assess the risks, opportunities, synergies and trade-offs from international initiatives, both regarding goals and across geographical scales. The study then applies the framework to an empirical case study of the green hydrogen hub in the Brazilian state of Ceará, where a green corridor is being created with Europe. The analysis is based on triangulation of data collected via in-depth semi-structured interviews, field work, industry reports, as well as official documents and communications. This framework shows that opportunities and risks, including global distributional impacts, will depend on the interplay between technology-, project-, and context-specific factors that span multiple geographical scales. Findings suggest that a global green hydrogen economy could bring negative distributive effects and trade-offs, especially in the short-term. Benefits like decarbonization of end-use sectors and increased industrial output would be primarily mobilized by developed countries who import the green hydrogen and export the technologies, while risks regarding delaying the local energy transition and increased external dependency would be borne by developing countries. Longer-term opportunities related to learning and diversification are both more uncertain and more challenging to realize in places with lower capabilities due to path-dependencies in economic and technological trajectories. Promoting both economic development and sustainability transitions would require local governments to implement strategic policy approaches, international cooperation to build local capabilities and help establish governance mechanisms, and developed country importers of green hydrogen to more systematically address such risks in their own policy making and investment strategies.

The Impact of the Opportunity Zone Program on Residential Real Estate

Problem definition: Opportunity zones (OZs) are designated census tracts in which real estate investments can gain tax benefits. Introduced by the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the goal of the OZ program is to foster economic development in distressed neighborhoods. In this paper, we investigate and optimize the OZ selection process and examine the impact of OZs by exploiting two data sets: a proprietary real estate data set that includes 36.1 million residential transactions spanning all 50 U.S. states and census-tract demographics data between 2010 and 2019. Methodology/results: We show that census tracts with higher poverty and unemployment rates were more likely to be selected. Counterintuitively, however, tracts with a higher average real estate price were also more likely to be selected. We then apply difference-in-differences, synthetic control, and matching techniques to rigorously assess the impact of the OZ program on two key real estate metrics: price and transaction volume. We find that the OZ program increased real estate prices by 4.03%–6.13% but do not observe a significant effect on the transaction volume. We also find that investors primarily targeted the high-end real estate market, namely, exhibiting a cherry-picking behavior. To better fulfill its intended societal and economic goals, we propose an optimization framework with fairness considerations for OZ assignment decisions. We show that the OZs assigned from our fairness-aware optimization formulation can better serve distressed communities and mitigate investors’ cherry-picking behavior. Managerial implications: Our paper underscores the importance of incorporating fairness in OZ designation to achieve a desirable real estate market reaction. Our large-scale empirical analysis provides a comprehensive assessment of the current government OZ assignment, and our fairness-aware optimization framework provides concrete recommendations for policy makers. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2024.0746 .

The Benefits of Positive Energy Districts: Introducing Additionality Assessment in Évora, Amsterdam and Espoo

Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) are a promising approach to urban energy transformation, aiming to optimize local energy systems and deliver environmental, social and economic benefits. However, their effectiveness and justification for investment rely on understanding the additional value they provide (additionality) in comparison to current policies and planning methods. The additionality perspective is not used yet in current evaluations of PED demonstrations and pilots. Therefore, this paper introduces the concept of additionality in the evaluation of PEDs, focusing on the additional benefits they bring and the circumstances under which they are most effective. We discuss the additionality of PEDs in addressing the challenges of climate neutrality and energy system transformation in three European cities that are funded by the European Commission’s H2020 Programme. It should be noted that given the ongoing status of these projects, the assessment is mainly based on preliminary results, as monitoring is still ongoing and quantitative results are not yet available. The paper discusses the drivers and barriers specific to PEDs, and highlights the challenges posed by technical complexities, financing aspects and social and legal restrictions. Conclusions are drawn regarding the concept of additionality and its implications for the wider development of PEDs as a response to the challenges of climate neutrality and energy system transformation in cities. We conclude that the additionality perspective provides valuable insights into the impact and potential of PEDs for societal goals and recommend this approach for use in the final evaluation of R&I projects involving PEDs using actual monitored data on PEDs.

Drivers of adult educational engagement in Ecuadorian prisons: A gender perspective

This research paper reports an investigation on the determinants of educational engagement among the whole Ecuadorian prison population as collected in the penitentiary census conducted in 2022. By employing a probit regression model, the analysis reveals distinct patterns: while age and ethnicity significantly influence participation among male inmates, environmental factors like overcrowding play a pivotal role for female prisoners. Moreover, higher levels of formal education negatively correlate with educational engagement across both genders. These findings underscore the need for targeted policies that address both individual and environmental barriers to educational participation within Ecuadorian prisons. By understanding these dynamics, policymakers can develop effective interventions to improve prison conditions and enhance rehabilitation outcomes, contributing to broader societal goals of justice and sustainable development.