The purpose of the group is to study the influence of digitalisation on citizens, actors, institutions and political processes. In this sense, it is proposed to analyse various phenomena such as:
- The impact of digitalisation on citizen participation and democratic quality.
- The transformations of digitalisation in the forms of organisation and functioning of political actors, particularly parties.
- The regulation of the digital performance of political actors.
- The different ideological conceptions linked to digitisation policies in different countries.
- Public Administrations as well as their policy impact.
- The impact of digitisation on public policy making and evaluation.
- The study of the changes in power relations in different institutions, groups and social movements brought about by digitalisation.
- Digitalisation and transformations in the functioning of political systems (representation, transparency, integrity, accountability).
The group is made up of teachers and researchers who have been jointly developing various projects aimed at studying the regulation of different sectors of economic activity, understood in a broad sense. The origin of these projects, generally from public law, focuses the work on the regulation produced by the existence of public interests, from the defence of competition in the market itself to the protection of other values (environmental, cultural, educational, social, pluralism, equality, persecution...), which justifies an intense legal intervention that goes far beyond what is usual in markets and sectors where these elements do not appear with such intensity.
To date, the most relevant activities of the research group are those developed around the work carried out in the context of various projects financed in competitive public calls for proposals or in preparation. These have dealt with issues related to the regulation of audiovisual markets, the regulation of certain cultural markets or the new regulatory challenges that appear with the emergence of business models based on the sharing economy.
This Research Group focuses on the analysis of the strategic decision-making process and human resources strategy, relating it to organisational knowledge management, innovative employee behaviour, entrepreneurial behaviour and corporate sustainability. In particular, it studies how HR policies serve as key factors in facilitating the implementation of knowledge management processes (acquisition, creation, storage, sharing, application and distribution) in organisations, generating innovation and entrepreneurship-oriented behaviours of individuals.
The analysis of how HR policies and their joint or systemic consideration become a catalyst for the individual's creativity and interest in developing innovations (new products, new processes or even new business projects) at the organisational level, which can contribute to the achievement of sustainable competitive advantages. In addition, the implementation of sustainability-oriented HR practices will, at the same time, enable the development of individual and collective behaviours that meet the current challenges that organisations face in terms of social responsibility and business sustainability. Likewise, the fact that knowledge has recently become a strategic resource for organisations has highlighted the need to manage it actively and with a clear strategic orientation. Therefore, the study of all knowledge management processes and how they are affected by the organisation's HR strategy is a subject of study for this Research Group. In turn, these knowledge management processes are essential to create the necessary climate for employees and groups within organisations to develop innovative and entrepreneurial behaviours.
The research projects developed within the framework of the team have an academic and applied orientation, and focus on collaboration with companies and managers to improve their management, with special emphasis on the problems of SMEs.
The group focuses on the study of territorial government and management at the local or regional level, including new practices of governance and territorial development planning at the local level, the analysis of public policies and territorial cooperation, regional and European development policies and regional political geography. The Local Government and Sustainable Territorial Development Research Group was born from the conjunction of two research groups, both within the IIDL (Sustainable Local Development and Local Government), which share the common objective of improving local development.
The new research group brings together the dynamics, equipment and past results to continue working with the aim of promoting innovation in management processes and local government, the structure of local public administrations, local government management and citizen participation, and the study of territorial management at local and regional level. The researchers of the group participate jointly in different national and international research projects (EU -HORIZON, ESPON, INTERREG-, and Latin American); in editorial projects and publications on the subject, as well as in training and teaching activities in official degrees of Spanish and Latin American universities.
The Research Group is a team that integrates leading researchers from different fields of knowledge in different areas, with the aim of promoting knowledge transfer and innovation in the processes of management and local government. Its participants have extensive experience in the field of local administration and are leaders in the field of human resources management in this area. The Group actively collaborates with various entities and institutions (city councils, regional administrations) in the exchange of best practices in working models related to local government. The group also participates in the implementation of an Observatory on Local Government, as an instrument for the collection of information on this level of government, and in the CAMPUSHABITAT5U project.
Its coordinator actively participates in the new Master in Planning and Management of Local Development of this UVEG, aimed at graduates who can make a significant contribution to local development, economic and employment promotion and, in general, the sustainable development of the different territories, and coordinates on behalf of the University of Valencia), and the Inter-University Master in Development Cooperation, which offers high-level training in development cooperation.
He is also coordinator of the Area of Territorial Governance, Spatial Planning and Environment of the IIDL, whose objective is to contribute to a better understanding of territorial dynamics and new forms of planning and governance of territorial and sectoral policies at different scales, in order to promote sustainable development.
