Politiques Publiques – Action politique – Territoires (UMR 5194)

The multidisciplinary PACTE laboratory (Public Policies – Political Action – Territories) comprises almost 130 researchers and teaching researchers, and approximately 200 doctoral students. Within this extensive range of profiles, the "Mountain" object mobilises the following disciplines: geography, urban planning, spatial planning and sociology. Work by the PACTE laboratory's researchers deals with the following topics:

• Tourism and recreational practices: on the one hand, research on post-tourism, i.e. mountain territories' transition towards diversified, de-compartmentalised activities (city-mountain, tourism-daily life) against a backdrop of climate and energy change; on the other hand, work on dissident practices and amateur/professional creativity, as well as tourism's role in terms of mountain territory development;
• How human societies adapt to natural risks (earthquakes, flooding, etc.). This means understanding the linkage between human societies and natural risks, and how exposed populations can reduce their vulnerabilities to hazards, which are particularly significant in the mountain environment;
• Mobility, notably that of individuals, through an analysis of territorial inequalities in terms of mobility (arising from social inequalities or inequalities in relation to transport or Internet access infrastructures). Mobility considerations are also analysed from the perspective of contested infrastructure projects, especially the high-speed train link between France and Italy, in particular by examining the social innovations that can be associated with these projects;
• Cross-border cooperation, construction, permanence or transformation of border territories, changes in their identities;
• Mobilisation of mountain resources, whether tangible (hydroelectric power, livestock, ski slopes, etc.) or intangible (know-how – as with the production of Beaufort cheese, local culture, etc.) to promote the development of mountain territories;
• Understanding of interactions between societies and natural ecosystems, the way in which resources are mobilised and the possible resulting ecological imbalances.

The PACTE laboratory has developed a broad panel of available expertise related to the mountain:

• Expertise on matters concerning territorial social and economic dynamics (e.g. assessment of tourism development models);
• Expertise on the assessment of local vulnerabilities and the construction of local policies for preventing risk and reducing vulnerabilities (integrated management);
• Expertise on the analysis of a territory's economic structure, and the weight of the different types of activities and/or income;
• Expertise in territorial ecology, on better understanding the interrelationships between human societies and their environment;
• Expertise on matters of mobility and the link between mobilities and public policies;
• Expertise on the consequences of global changes in mountain territories, in particular on tourist activities (e.g. impact of climate change on mountaineering and mountain activities);

Support for the process of change in vocational courses and the tourist industry's destinations (creativity workshops, training actions, participatory research).