ArgLab awarded grant of cooperation programme of the Portuguese FCT and the the Turkish TUBITAK

ArgLab-IFILNOVA is one of the 10 research institutions awarded the grant of Projetos conjuntos de Investigação Científica e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, a bilateral cooperation programme of the FCT and the TUBITAK. The bilateral cooperation programme aims to strengthen scientific output, communication and partnerships in Portugal and Turkey, by supporting joint research and development projects. (More on the programme at here)

ArgLab’s research project with Medeniyetler Isttifaki Enstitusu (MEDIT) of Fatih Sultan Mehmet University is entitled Ecological Reasoning and Decision Making in innovation-oriented industry sectors at the periphery of Europe: Reconciling divergent values and interests. The project will be supported for 2 years. Within this timeframe, the project aims to examine the link between values and practical argumentation, employing an empirical approach. The systematic study of online documents and interview material collected in the course of the project will help the researchers to test and elaborate on the existing models of practical reasoning, by expanding the norms of argumentative reasonableness to contextual, institutional settings. The institutional setting that the project attends to is that of ecological governance, or more specifically, the transition to a low-carbon economy. By paying close attention to the reasoning and communication patterns, and argumentative strategies employed by the innovation-oriented Portuguese and Turkish industrial actors concerning the required transition, the project will both account for the “ecological reasoning” of major economic and technological actors operating at the periphery of Europe, and examine the value-based, agentive, normative, and temporal aspects of ecological reasoning.