LoGov-RISE Project
The Centre is Canada’s participant in developing a multi-national project on Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay. Each country’s research team will study the responsibilities of different levels of government, financial arrangements, and public participation in relation to the growing gap between urban and rural settlements, and to identify innovative practices to respond to these challenges. Prof. Martin Horak is leading this project. Housed at the Institute for Comparative Federalism at Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy, the LoGov project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (MSCA-RISE) programme.
2023–24 Visiting Scholars
Moneyba González-Medina (June 2024 - August 2024)
Lecturer and researcher of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She holds a PhD in Political Science and Administration (2009, University of Santiago de Compostela). She has a Master Degree in Law (2000) and in Political Science and Administration (2002). She has carried out research stays at the Universität Konstanz in Germany (2004-2006), the Politecnico di Milano in Italy (2012-2014), the University of the West of England in United Kingdom (2020) and the Universidad Nacional de San Martín in Argentina (2023). Her areas of expertise encompasses public policy analysis and local governance, and her research interest is focused on urban development policies, urban strategic planning, urban Europeanisation and public administration reform. She has published several studies on these subjects, the most recent: González-Medina, M., De Gregorio Hurtado, S. (2024). “Metropolitan Governance in Madrid: Institutionalization and Models from a Policy Perspective”
During her stay at UWO as part of the LoGov-RISE project, her primary focus will be to investigate the metropolitan dynamics and institutional arrangements in Canada. Among other aspects, she will analyze the metropolitan governance framework, the incentives for promoting collaboration between municipalities and the coordination of policies at metropolitan scale.
Caroline Schulte Oestrich (February 2024 – April 2024)
PhD Candidate and research assistant at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München at the Chair of Public Law, Business Administrative Law, Environmental and Social Security Law (Prof. Dr. Martin Burgi). Her research is focused on public economic law, particularly in relation to public infrastructure.
During her stay at UWO as part of the LoGov-RISE project, her focus will be on the local governments' power and impact on mobility. She will examine, inter alia, the differences and challenges that exist in the provision of mobility services in urban and rural areas.
Ester Marco Peñas (October 2023 - January 2024)
Professor of Financial and Tax Law at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid since 2017. PhD in Financial and Tax Law from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2014). Her main lines of research are budget stability, public debt, application of the European System of Accounts (ESA) and financing of essential public services. She has published several works on these subjects, including her doctoral thesis (The European concept of public debt), which received a special mention from the Spanish Congress. She has carried out research stays at: IBFD (2004), Max Planck Institute Munich (2005), Université de Strasbourg (2007), London School of Economics and Political Science (2009/2010), and has been a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University Baltimore (2016 and 2017).
During her stay at UWO as part of the LoGov-RISE project, her primary focus will be to investigate the financing of local public services through various fee structures and payment methods. Among other aspects, she will analyze the extent to which the service management approach (whether it is directly administered by the local government or through a public-private partnership) influences the nature and characteristics of user fees.
Félix Alberto Vega Borrego (October 2023 - January 2024)
Professor of Financial and Tax Law at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where he earned his PhD in 2002. His primary research areas encompass international taxation, tax procedures, and the taxation and financing of local governments. His research has been published in renowned Spanish and international publishers and journals, including Kluwer Law International, IBFD, Intertax, Aranzadi, Civitas, Revista española de Derecho Financiero, and Crónica Tributaria, among others. He has also conducted research stays at various institutions, including IBFD (2000, 2001, and 2015), Institut für Steuerrecht-University of Cologne (2002), and Georgetown Law (2016).
Throughout his stay at UWO as part of the LoGov-RISE project, his focus will be on the financing of local public services through fees or other types of payments. Among other aspects, he will explore whether principles such as the ability to pay or the personal and family circumstances of the user are taken into consideration when determining the amount of user fees.
Marcin Tobiasz (September - October 2023)
Marcin Tobiasz, PhD in political sciences (2008), a research and teaching fellow at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw. From 2016 to 2019 Deputy Director of the Institute of Political Science. Since 2021, Head of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in Political Science. The Secretary of the Editorial Board of the journal Polish Political Science Yearbook. Long-time member, secretary and then chairman of the Recruitment Committee at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies. Former member of the Audit Committee at the Mazovian Branch of Polish Political Science Association. Contractor in National Science Centre’s program Political representation in modern democracies: limitations and challenges under the direction of Prof. Tomasz Żyro. Research interests: democratic theory, political pluralism, political participation and deliberative democracy.
Theresia Morandell (March - June 2023)
Theresia Morandell is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Comparative Federalism of Eurac Research Bolzano/Bozen (Italy), and at the Chair for Urban Policy and Spatial Development at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policies and Administration from the Free University of Bolzano and Bachelor degrees in Political Science and Communication Studies from the University of Salzburg (Austria). Her PhD research focuses on multi-level governance and urban-rural relations in the policy sector of spatial planning, with a geographical focus on medium-sized cities in Europe.
Łukasz Zamęcki (June - July 2023)
Dr. Łukasz Zamęcki is a researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw. Dean’s Plenipotentiary for the discipline of political science and administration. In 2016-2020, Vice-Dean for Scientific Research and International Relations of the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw. Formerly, inter alia, Deputy Director of the Institute of European Studies (2012-2016) and head of full-time first cycle studies and full-time MA studies at the Department of European Studies at the University of Warsaw (2010-2012).
In 2013-2015, he was secretary of the Board of the Polish Society for European Studies. Since 2017, secretary of the Research Committee “Socio-political Pluralism” of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).
Head of several research projects, incl. “De-democratization at the times of Covid-19” (4EU+); “Nostalgic deprivation as a source of the development of populism” (National Science Center).
Associate of the Ministry of National Education and State Examination Committee, expert of the National Agency of the Erasmus+ Program and Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. Tutor of a scientific student club, tutor of foreign students. In the years 2010-2023 he gave lectures, among others in Taipei, Hong Kong, Macau, Chengdu, London, Nicosia, Tallinn, Sofia, Shanghai, Dehli, Tokio, Ottawa.
Research interests: Democratization, De-democratization,Contentious Politics, Politics in East Asia.
2022–23 Visiting Scholars
Karl Kössler (June - August 2022)
Dr. Karl Kössler is Research Group Leader at the Institute for Comparative Federalism of Eurac Research Bolzano/ Bozen, Italy. In 2018, he was appointed as Member of the Council of Europe’s Group of Independent Experts on the European Charter of Local Self- Government. Since 2019, he has been the Scientific Coordinator of the five- year EU Horizon 2020 project “Local Government and the Changing Urban- Rural Interplay (LoGov)”.
Alicia Sevillano (July - August 2022)
Alicia Sevillano is a PhD candidate awarded a grant from the Spanish Ministry for Universities. She holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, 2020) and a MA in Democracy and Government (Autonomous University of Madrid, 2021). She is pursuing her PhD at the Local Law Institute (Autonomous University of Madrid), focusing her research on metropolitan governance.
Malin Nischwitz (August - September 2022)
Malin Nischwitz is a fully qualified lawyer and PhD candidate at the Institute for Politics and Public Law (University of Munich). Since 2020, she has been academic councilor and lecturer at the Chair of Public Law, Business Administrative Law, Environmental and Social Security Law (University of Munich). Her research focus lies on climate change as a challenge for municipalities.
Carmen Navarro (October - November 2022)
Carmen Navarro is associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University Autónoma of Madrid - UAM, where she focuses her research and teaching in local government and public policy. She is the author of several books and articles in international journals of reference. She has worked on international research projects on local political leadership, metropolitan areas, local assemblies and local autonomy. Since 2019 she is the Vice-Director of the Institute on Local Government and Law IDL-UAM and since 2020 she is the Scientific Coordinator of the Research Project "Public Policies and Services to tackle Depopulation".
