Professor Maria Ivanova, an academic working on global governance, cites the necessity of globally engaged scholarship when discussing how they overlap in fulfilling social and environmental change. She is an academic who focuses on global environmental governance. She was recently a member of the Rwandan delegation to UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi Kenya, which met in February and March 2022. Rwanda and Peru were the leaders of the political process for Resolution End Plastic Pollution: A Towards a legally binding Instrument, which was adopted by the governments in Nairobi.
Ivanova’s work began in Rwanda in 2018 as part UMass Bostons Integrative graduate education and research traineeship program. It received a $3.1million grant by the National Science Foundation. As Co-Principal investigator, she taught a class about African environmental issues. She also co-led a group consisting of 30 UMass Boston faculty members and students to Rwanda, where they established meaningful collaborations with local authorities. Ivanova has maintained her engagement with Rwandan government agencies. In 2022, she was invited to join the country’s delegation at the UNEA.
Ivanova was the only academic in a government delegation to the UNEA. It was notable to see an academic at the UNEA. While she acknowledged that governmental delegations often recruit academics and rely on them to inform policymaking in the climate change negotiations, this has not been the case for UNEA. She stated, “It was great to see that happen and to be that academic in a delegation of a small country, which was negotiating on a very large global problem.” Rwanda was instrumental in changing the traditional notion of plastic pollution being a marine debris problem and focusing on the entire lifecycle of plastics. Rwanda’s negotiations with Peru regarding climate change, particularly plastics, reflect multilateralism’s role in affecting positive global changes while emphasizing small nations’ role on global levels.
Ivanova’s presence at UNEA is a testimony to her commitment to integrating scholarship and practice. It also reflects her belief that it is impossible to separate them. At McCormack Graduate School, such integration is a common practice. She explained that the school of public policy ,…McCormack was not only a place to learn, but also a place to share ideas. AllowEngaged scholarship to occur; ExpectationsEngaged scholarship is possible. This is the norm. This is the expectation. This is McCormack’s aspiration, and it is what brought me here 12 years ago and continues to inspire.
As part of the vision of former Provost Winston Langley to establish a program on human safety, Ivanova joined UMass Boston in 2010 as a faculty member. Ivanova pointed out that the McCormack Graduate School’s doctoral program in Global Governance and Human Security aligns with the definitions of human security, which is the ability to live healthy, productive lives in harmony and with nature. The PhD program combines the goal and practice of global governancethe what with the how.
Ivanova’s commitment to engaging students and scholars both inside and outside academia has informed her academic and administrative work as Director of Center for Governance and Sustainability and as the Director of the PhD program in Global Governance and Human Security at the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security and Global Governance. She is dedicated to preparing students for their future careers and assisting them in real-world situations related to policymaking, social and environmental change.
Ivanova’s pedagogy has a deep stake in the success and opportunities for students at McCormack Graduate School. Ivanova was joined at the UN Environment Programme by McCormack Graduate School PhD Students Meg Hassey, Brian Harding and Wondwossen Sintayehu. Meg Hasseys engagement was aligned to the objectives for the delegation, since her current dissertation work focuses on plastics. Ivanova stated that many of our PhD students are already involved and embedded in this field. Ivanova is an educator who sees the opportunities for academic work to be extended beyond the University walls. This allows scholars to become involved in the real world they live and work in. She summarized it as: This is…what fuels me passion: The ability to engage academia in the governance field and encourage young people to learn about and practice solving environmental problems.
