EA and strategic capacity
At the annual conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment in Bologna (1-4 may 2025), Sibout Nooteboom will present a paper on the link between environmental assessment and strategic capacity. Sibout is reflexive practitioner at the NCEA and associated with the Erasmus University of Rotterdam's research group on public governance. His presentation will be based on three draft essays to be downloaded below. The paper nor the essays necessarily express the views of the NCEA or the Erasmus University.
Request for feedback
To improve the quality of the presentation, Sibout would highly appreciate any feedback from interested professionals on the essays. You are kindly invited to read the essays and send any feedback to s.g.nooteboom essb.eur.nl, or to his LinkedIn-account. On this site and announced on LinkedIn, Sibout will:
- list the improvements, inspired by your feedback;
- share updated versions of the essays;
- give credits to those who inspired the feedback (unless you indicate otherwise).
You can download the essays here 👇👇👇. Enjoy reading!
Essay 1. Making SEA contribute to strategic capacity. The central hypothesis of this essay is that the main purpose of the SEA procedure is to increase our capacity of considering strategic alternatives to set transformative change in motion if we think that this is necessary for a sustainable development. That strategic capacity itself, however, is not SEA. It is connecting across our public - private governance system, engaging in joint fact finding.
Essay 2. Using SEA to balance the powers that can transform our development. The central hypothesis of this essay is that powerful actors can use SEA ‘charitably in their own interest’. As long as power imbalance remains pervasive, dominant actors can give otherwise dominated actors more influence, knowing that in the long term ‘we all depend on each other’. Some agencies are specialised 'quasi-charities'.
Essay 3. Making SEA stronger with Artificial Intelligence. The central hypothesis of this essay is that if Artificial Intelligence is to make SEA stronger, AI foremost must increase our strategic capacity. Not make the powerful more powerful.