Applied Research Projects (ARPs) offer a unique pedagogical experience in which students in the interdisciplinary master’s programme work closely with policy-makers, practitioners and leaders in Geneva and beyond to answer some of the most pressing research questions of global concern.
The ARPs are divided into five tracks: trade and international finance; power, conflict and development; global security; environment, resources and sustainability; and mobilities, spaces and cities.
The five best projects from 2021 were selected by a committee of faculty members, and are highlighted here.
Track: Environment, Resources & Sustainability
Team members: Khaliun Purevsuren, Ryota Taniguchi, Florian Paul Duriaux, Sarayu Krishnan
Project: Crowdfunding Cleantech
Partner: Swiss National Research Programme 73 on Sustainable Economy, a subproject within the “Financing Cleantech” project by the Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
"Our research, involving 13 industry experts, explores how an alternative financing tool like crowdfunding can capture investors’ financial and non-financial motivations and how it encourages financing of cleantech startups. We hope this research contributes to much needed literature into innovative financing models and broadens opportunities to mobilise finances into cleantech, which is a crucial sector in limiting or adapting to global warming."
Track: Trade and International Finance
Team members: Alana S. Peters and Ravini Gunasekera
Project: Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Social Inclusiveness
Partner: International Trade Centre (ITC)
"Using the ITC SME Competitiveness Survey for 15 countries, we employ an inequality lens to firms' competitiveness to identify channels of improvement for laggard firms, particularly led by women and youth. In analysing the qualitative part of the Survey, we find substantial inequalities in responses, not only in terms of gender and age but also between countries. Working with ITC and the academic team was a rewarding opportunity to refine our research skills and to connect with the reality faced by entrepreneurs that is essential in guiding more effective policymaking."
Track: Mobilities, spaces and cities
Team Members: Anisha Jalan, Anna Becker, Arveen Sodhi
Project: Children of an Urban War: A Review of Interventions Preventing Youth Engagement in Urban Violence and Organised Crime in Brazil
Partner: War Child, Holland
"Through conversations with academic experts, local and international organisations, our project aimed at reviewing and identifying effective interventions to help prevent youth engagement in violence and organised crime in the urban peripheries of Brazil. To this end, and placing self-reflexivity at the centre, our project provided a set of recommendations arguing for the need to guarantee that youth have the control and power they require to influence change in their lives. We remain grateful to our partner organisation which provided us with great support, and gave us intellectual autonomy to frame, analyse and report our findings."
Track: Conflict and Security
Team Members: Anne Danker, Silvia Ecclesia, Laila Saidu, Sixtine Vernet
Project: The Role of Technology in the Development-Peace Nexus
Partner: EPFL Essential Tech Centre
"Our Capstone project analysed the role of the EssentialTech Centre’s projects in contributing to more peaceful societies, considering also the gender dimension. To do so, we studied three different technology- and social entrepreneurship-based projects in Mozambique, Haiti, and Lebanon, to better understand their impact on context-specific drivers of conflict, finally providing our partner organisation with some recommendations aimed at improving their use of 'essential technologies' in conflict-prone areas to maximise their projects’ potential.
This experience gave us the opportunity to challenge ourselves with complex concepts such as peacebuilding, the social contract, resilience, empowerment, social entrepreneurship, and gender, and translate them operationally into a complex theoretical framework that informed our research. The synergetic communication and cooperation within our team, not only among ourselves but also with our academic team and partner organisation, made this experience all the more rewarding."
Track: Conflict and Security
Team Members: Aurélie Lemay, Louka Morin-Tremblay, Elio Panese, Marion Sauzay
Project: Exploring Integration & Inclusion through a human-centric lens: How to catalyse confidence, resolve trauma and transform career paths in the refugee community in Switzerland and beyond
Partner: Refugee Voices
"We have provided Refugee Voices with recommendations as well as an operational concept of self-confidence, and a new measuring tool to evaluate the self-confidence of participants in the upcoming sessions. While attending the workshop through our participative approach, we had the opportunity to directly interact in the sessions and see 'Confiance Catalysée' in action. This project allowed us to accompany refugees into an empowering, self-reflecting programme on analysing confidence and meet amazing people along the way."
