MAPS stands for Models, Assessment, and Policies for Sustainability. The project’s aim is to explore transformative policy pathways that achieve equitable human wellbeing while respecting Earth’s environmental limits, and assess these using a state-of-the-art simulation model.
The Project
What is MAPS?
Context
The lack of evidence for sufficient decoupling between economic growth and environmental pressures suggests that future trajectories built on economic growth may not be possible. At the same time, the pursuit of economic growth is failing to improve people’s lives in European nations. There is an urgent need for a new paradigm that reconciles human wellbeing with environmental sustainability. A paradigm that could potentially reconcile these objectives is post-growth.
Post-growth includes approaches such as degrowth, Doughnut economics, a wellbeing economy, and a steady-state economy. The idea is that high-income countries should move beyond the pursuit of GDP growth as a policy goal, and instead pursue policies that directly improve human wellbeing while reducing resource use.
Approach
MAPS uses participatory approaches and co-creation with policymakers and researchers to explore post-growth pathways and inform real-world decision-making. The simulation model that the project is developing goes beyond conventional models and includes a holistic set of environmental, social, and economic indicators. The project engages with the latest advances in artificial intelligence, both in the scenarios it considers, and the models it develops.
By providing research-backed policy scenarios, assessments, and modelling tools, the MAPS project aims to help facilitate a shift towards a new economic paradigm for the 21st century. The project identifies post-growth policies that are not only politically feasible and socio-economically sound but also enjoy public support. MAPS strives to provide decision makers with the knowledge and tools to build a better future, where a good life for all is achieved within the environmental limits of our planet.
Consortium
MAPS is a four-year interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe programme. It is coordinated by professors Dan O’Neill and Federico Demaria at the University of Barcelona and brings together leading universities and researchers. The partner institutions include the University of Pisa, University of Surrey, ZOE Institute for Future-fit Economies, Association of Instituto Superior Técnico for Research and Development, University of Leeds, Corvinus University of Budapest, Universita Autònoma de Barcelona, Tampere University, and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
