Regulating without Regulation? Regulating without the Sovereign?

The development of automated decision-making technologies creates the threat of de-iuridification: replacement of the legal acts’ provisions with automated, technological solutions. The article examines how selected provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation concerning, among other things, data protection impact assessments, the right to not be subject to automated decision-making, information obligations and the right to access are applied in the Polish national legal order. We focus on the institutional and procedural solutions regarding the involvement of expert bodies and other stakeholders in the process of specification of the norms included in the gdpr and their enforcement. We argue that the example of Poland shows that the solutions adopted in the gdpr do not shift the balance concerning regulatory power in regard to automated decision-making to other stakeholders and as such do not favor of a more participative approach to the regulatory processes.

Cross-analysis for the assessment of urban environmental quality: An interdisciplinary and participative approach

The goal of this research is to assess environmental quality at the neighbourhood level through a multi-dimensional and multi-sensory approach that combines social and physical methodologies. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary protocol has been designed to simultaneously collect physical parameter measurements (related to microclimate and acoustics) and survey data on perceptions (involving residents and non-residents). The cross-referenced analysis of data collected at six contrasting places in a district in Toulouse (France) enabled us (i) to better understand and prioritise the factors that influence residents' assessment of the quality of their living environment and (ii) to understand to what extent the differentiation of the places by the inhabitants converges with the differentiation of these places based on acoustic and micrometeorological measurements. The statistical analysis based on individuals showed the importance of noise and air quality that rank just after the aesthetic dimension for all respondents. Nevertheless, the quality of maintenance and the feeling of security that the place inspires seem to be as crucial as these environmental criteria for the inhabitants. The analysis focused on the sites highlighted the consistency between the typology of places based on perceptions and that based on acoustic measurements, which confirms the high inhabitants' sensitivity to this environmental component.

Exploiting data from the NoiseCapture application for environmental noise measurements with a smartphone

NoiseCapture is a smartphone application initially developed as part of a participative approach for environmental noise mapping. After more than 3 years, the database produced from all over the world contributions is considerable (more than 77k contributors, nearly 300k tracks representing about 72 million 1-second measurements, in nearly 200 countries). Beyond the initial objective, other uses of the application have emerged: individually by users for their own needs, by associations of people in charge of the fight against noise pollution, within the framework of educational activities, by researchers for the realization of their own research, by communities to address the subject of noise pollution. As these new applications emerged, the development team of NoiseCapture was led to extend the possibilities of exploitation of these data. Thus, in this paper, we present different possibilities for a user to perform his own data analysis, namely: a local export of data from the smartphone, access to raw data and pre-processed data from the NoiseCapture server, access to formatted GIS layers from OGC standard service. All these methods are enabled thanks to the open source ecosystem, such as Python libraries, R software suite and GIS tools.

Climate change and public perception. Citizens' proposals for better communication and involvement

This paper explains how a participative approach was used to collect first-hand citizens’ suggestions on how to improve science communication regarding Climate Change. A public consultation involving citizens from 5 different European countries revealed various perspectives concerning their communication preferences on scientific topics. Five main themes emerged following citizens' proposals for better communication and involvement: producer of information, medium, message strategies, audiences and areas of action and engagement.

MANAGEMENT EDUCATION IN THE DISRUPTIVE TIMES OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE CASE OF PARTICIPATIVE APPROACH IN DISTANCE LEARNING

This paper is focused on various possibilities of effective management education at universities during the world pandemic of Covid-19. In more detail, there is examined one specific case of distance learning at the Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Žilina, Slovakia. This paper highlights the importance of active interaction between educators and students, and building relationships among students by teamwork. The substantial outcome of this research paper is endorsing the importance of participative attitude at the seminars of Management. One of the key factors in students’ motivation is the attitude of teachers, who, in this process, act as colleagues. Thus, the lecturers form a direct part of the educational process, rather than just the controlling part. In this re-search, the students’ satisfaction with the way of teaching this subject was measured. It was proven that the participative attitude of teachers is linked to increased motivation of students. Some of them would even welcome this type of leading and learning in other lectures, too. This approach was confirmed as effective mostly during distance learning since students might feel more stressed and overwhelmed and their motivation tends to decrease. It is crucial to include such elements into the education process which strengthen the students’ motivation. Teaching based on practical examples from a business environment in which the students work with real data and information may be the right way.

Starting a Participative Approach to Develop Local Green Infrastructure; from Boundary Concept to Collective Action

Flanders (Belgium) is one of the most densely populated regions in Europe. Intensive land use, widespread suburbanization, inadequate environmental qualities, and fragmentation everywhere deteriorate living conditions and put pressure on species and natural habitats. In the past, several governmental initiatives were launched to establish a coherent ecological network to improve the situation. Despite the set objectives, only a little progress was made. Therefore, to establish green infrastructure, a new approach that moves away from previous top-down and one-sided strategies is developed. Making use of Green Infrastructure as a boundary concept, interpretation was given through an open and participatory process. The core is the identification of common objectives (ecosystem services or other objectives/services), the selection of appropriate green infrastructure elements to support the services, and the co-design of a network taking the local socio-ecological realm into account. By applying the methodology in concrete urban and rural projects, we learned that establishing strong coalitions of stakeholders, obtaining and sharing reliable knowledge of the systems are key to an effective realization of green infrastructure.