Fifthly, the relations to the outside world are very
diverse between countries. Sources for research
funding differ—in some countries foundations are
important, whereas public funding is more important
in others. In Europe, EU funding has been decisive for
ecological economic research. Ecological economics
has benefited from research programmes directed
towards transdisciplinary research; however, these
possibilities are still restricted by the dominance of
discipline-oriented researchers in the reviewing process
(as noted by Perrings in the Dec. 2003 Newsletter
of ISEE). Much research in ecological economics has
a wider audience than scientific peers, as the results
are sometimes addressed to central or local authorities,
for instance, in relation to the conceptualization
of the scale problem (for instance, materials flow
analysis has influenced the European Environment
Agency and Eurostat, and the resilience concept was
included in the Swedish contribution to the Johannesburg
meeting), the management of environmental resources, decision-making processes and institutional
change. Some research is addressed to and used by
non-governmental organizations, such as the research
on ecological footprints, environmental space, and
ecological conflicts in the developing countries. In the
USA, there is a tradition for cooperating with
activists, and the conferences include talks by, for
example journalists. Audiences outside academia can
influence the reputations of the individual researcher,
as most ecological economists consider it important to
actually influence the political agenda.