PhD clears the way for new partnerships within the local authorities

Will private partnerships increase the quality of municipal waste management?

Hopefully, a new partnership with a PhD student from CBS will provide The City of Copenhagen, the City of Aarhus and the environmental company Vestforbrænding with an answer.

The waste management sector is growing rapidly. Collecting and handling waste is no longer only a municipal task, but are increasingly provided on market terms. At the same time, the political environment have tightened their requirements for new waste solutions with a focus on climate and environment. The PhD project will look into how the use of new types of procurement and collaboration can contribute to turn the new requirements into a more efficient organisation and sustainable initiatives.

Better public-private partnerships - better service for the citizens

The project will be undertaken by PhD student Sofie Dam.

- This project is supposed to contribute to improvement of the collaboration between the public and the private sector and thereby giving the citizens a better service, says Sofie Dam from the Department of Business and Politics at CBS.

Ayfer Baykal, the Technical and Environmental Mayor of Copenhagen welcomes the project:

- Climate and environmental initiatives are already a part of the waste management in Copenhagen, but we have to push people constantly to come up with new green solutions. It is not enough only to impose requirements. We have to be a part of the innovative waste mangement solutions through several partnerships and research in waste management of the future.

Business PhD - a possiblity for both the private and the public sector

The new project is added to a number of research projects at CBS about public-private partnerships.  The project supervisor is Professor Carsten Greve from CBS, who is one of the leading researchers in this area.

According to Carsten Greve, a business PhD is an opportunity for both the public and the private sector to gain new perspectives on specific challenges.

- The project runs over three years, so we are actually able to sound the depth here, which otherwise might have been impossible for the busy municipalities. We are really pleased that Aarhus, Copenhagen and Vestforbrænding have chosen to challenge and strengthen their execution of tasks by making the most recent research in public-private partnerships a part of the academic basis for change in waste management. The PhD project fits perfectly with CBS' focus on research in public-private partnerships and sustainability, says Carsten Greve.

Læs mere om ph.d.-studerende Sofie Dam.