Governance Working Group - Call for Applicants
The Governance Working Group invites applications from individuals interested in joining a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort to strengthen global nitrogen governance.
The iN-Net Governance Working Group comprises more than 30 scholars and professionals representing academia, non-profit organizations, the private sector, and government. Over the past year, the group has evaluated governance approaches, identified institutional gaps, and developed strategies for transformative change. The Working Group now invites new members to collaborate on specific thematic areas and to support both ongoing and new initiatives.
Current key areas of work include:
Area 1: Historical Trajectories and Paradigm Shifts
This area examines the evolution of nitrogen governance, tracing its role from agricultural intensification to its recognition as a global environmental issue. It analyzes historical shifts, geopolitical influences, and competing paradigms that shape contemporary governance structures.
Area 2: Critical Gaps in Nitrogen Governance Research & Practice
This area identifies significant gaps and persistent challenges in nitrogen governance, including social dimensions, power dynamics, and institutional fragmentation.
Area 3: A Transformative Vision for Nitrogen Governance
This area develops frameworks and principles to promote more just, efficient, and sustainable nitrogen governance. It advances systemic change by emphasizing circularity, multi-scale coordination, and the integration of diverse knowledge systems.
Area 4: Key Steps Necessary to Advance a Systems-Oriented Transformation of Nitrogen Governance
This area translates transformative visions into actionable steps by focusing on policy design, implementation, and monitoring. It emphasizes the development of stronger knowledge-policy interfaces, robust metrics, and coordinated action across scales and sectors.
Each area contributes to comprehensive group-wide initiatives and develops specific outputs and collaborative initiatives.
Strategic Priority Areas
We encourage applications from individuals with diverse backgrounds whose interests correspond with our established and emerging priorities, particularly those possessing expertise in the following domains:
Agricultural and environmental policy, politics, and governance, as well as broadly defined policy studies and analysis.
Environmental social sciences, social studies of science, and environmental humanities, with emphasis on research addressing the social and cultural politics of nitrogen use and pollution.
Political economy of fertilizer subsidies, fertilizer markets, and global supply chains.
Human health impacts of nitrogen pollution, as well as the role of health considerations in policy-making and social mobilization.
Farmers’ movements, protests, and policy conflicts.
Inequities in the distribution of environmental burdens across regions and communities.
International negotiations, multi-actor collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and efforts to align climate, food, and biodiversity agendas.
Coalition-building among governments, civil society, and the private sector to facilitate systemic change.
Green ammonia governance and cross-sector dynamics connecting energy, transportation, agriculture, and climate.
Agroecological transitions and governance challenges encountered by small-scale farmers, particularly in the Global South.
Youth engagement and advocacy in environmental governance, with a focus on movement-building and intergenerational strategies for nitrogen governance.
Gender and inclusive governance, emphasizing differentiated impacts, equity considerations, and the influence of gender on the development of nitrogen-related policies and practices.
Decolonial approaches to environmental governance, incorporating critical analyses of power dynamics, knowledge systems, and justice within nitrogen governance.
The Governance Working Group aims to integrate diverse perspectives and experiences from various regions and knowledge systems. We are particularly interested in applicants who can address conditions in the Global South and the relationships, asymmetries, and connections between the Global North and South.
Key activities include:
Regular virtual and in-person meetings to facilitate collaboration and knowledge exchange
Expert–stakeholder workshops designed to bridge research, policy, and practice
Preparation of synthesis, review, meta-analysis, and perspective papers
Development of collaborative grant proposals
Creation of policy briefs, guidance documents, webinars, and additional tools to inform and support national and international nitrogen action plans
How to apply?
We welcome applications from individuals working in academia, community-based organizations, civil society, the private sector, and the broader policy arena who are engaged in nitrogen-related issues or bring relevant expertise and experience.
We particularly seek scholars and practitioners from the social sciences and humanities who address social and environmental challenges. Applications are especially encouraged from individuals based in the Global South, broadly defined, and from those with experience collaborating with organizations and communities in these regions.
Please submit your CV and a one-page cover letter, along with additional professional details, through the following Google Form: https://forms.gle/cc6sL4fzvSEnKzRh9
Deadline for applications: Sunday, April 26.
For more information, please contact: admin@in-net.network