Concluding Conference of the SNSF Signergia Research Project “Trade Packages - Making Trade Agreements Work in Service Society”

Over the past four years, the research project examined how trade governance can better contribute to societal and environmental well-being. At the heart of the project is a simple but consequential question: how can trade agreements move beyond traditional policy silos and address the broader social and environmental effects associated with trade? Bringing together research on the foundations of trade governance, environmental protection, labour, and gender, the project has explored both the negative effects associated with trade and the range of “flanking measures” that can help address them.

This concluding conference will take stock of the project’s main findings and place them in a broader conversation about the evolution of trade governance. It will bring together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss what four years of research on trade packages tell us about the prospects for making trade more sustainable and socially beneficial. Beyond presenting the project’s findings, the conference will ask:

Where do we stand today, and are we making meaningful progress towards trade for the benefit of society ?