Posts Tagged ‘news’

16 Dec

SocSES Webinar with Denise Simmons on Innovation and Resilient Agriculture.

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the SocSES webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Reimagining Science-based and institutional-led innovation for a (Climate) Resilient Agricultural System in Guyana

Abstract:

This research analyzes how Guyana’s agricultural institutions are innovating to keep the climate-vulnerable rice sector resilient. Using the hypothesis of induced innovation, document analysis, and focus groups, it shows how science-based advances and polycentric collaboration—spanning new rice varieties, agronomy, ICT tools, and water management—co-produce adaptation. The work clarifies how institutional arrangements shape the generation, coordination, and scaling of climate-resilient innovation.

Bio: 

Denise Simmons is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Studies of the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Guyana where she teaches courses in Environmental Chemistry, Aquatic Sciences and Environmental Impact Assessment. Her research interests and scholarly work are primarily in environmental pollution, environmental impact assessment, education for sustainable development, and more recently at the intersection of institutions, innovation and climate adaptation. She holds a BSc in Chemistry/Physics and a MSc in Environmental Science. She defended her dissertation in 2026 and graduated with a PhD in Innovation in Global Development from the Rob Walton College of Global Futures, Arizona State University.

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

29 Nov

SocSES Webinar with Amanda Jiménez Aceituno on Transformative Pathways towards Sustainable and Just Futures

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the SocSES webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Transformative pathways towards sustainable and just futures: Insights from the Seeds of Good Anthropocene and the 3 Horizons Approach

Abstract:

Contemporary ecological, social, and economic crises highlight how deeply global societies remain locked into unsustainable pathways. Shifting these pathways requires fundamental transformative changes, guided by new ways of relating to nature and addressing inequalities based on compelling and actionable visions of just and sustainable futures. Sustainability scholars have emphasized the need to identify opportunities for transformative change and to understand the agency of different actors and their collaborations in pursuing such transformations. In this seminar, I approach transformation theory from a social-innovation lens, drawing on insights from the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes project to explore how alternative, non-mainstream initiatives can build (or erode) resilience and open space for systemic change. I illustrate these dynamics with examples from the Resilience Must-Knows report, showing how coping, adaptation, and transformation unfold in practice. I then share findings from a case study in southeast Spain, where the Three Horizons methodology was used as a participatory scenario-building process to create desirable future visions, identify current system traps, and develop actionable strategies for regional change. Finally, I discuss emerging research on the role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities-led initiatives as catalysts for social-ecological transformations. Together, these insights show how local “seeds” and participatory foresight can help guide pathways toward more sustainable and just futures. 

Bio: 

Amanda Jiménez Aceituno is a sustainability researcher and theme leader at the Stockholm Resilience Centre with a background in Environmental Sciences and a PhD in Environmental Education. Jiménez´s work focuses on sustainability transformations, contributing to its conceptual and methodological development, such as the use of the values-rules-knowledge framework or the leverage points approach to reveal the transformative potential of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC)- led initiatives (e.g., Jiménez-Aceituno et al. 2025). The Seeds of the Good Anthropocenes approach has been a key platform in her study of transformations. Jiménez also works on developing and implementing transdisciplinary research methods that can enhance our understanding of collective processes and foster sustainability in social-ecological systems.

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

3 Nov

SocSES Webinar with Tara Grillos on Collective Decision Making and Experimental Evidence from Kenya

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the PECS webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Collective Decision Making & Local Public Goods – Experimental Evidence from Kenyas

Abstract:

One of Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for effective commons governance emphasizes the role of direct participation in decision making. Inclusion in collective decisions has been linked experimentally to greater self-stated willingness to invest in local public goods, increased public good contributions, and greater feelings of ownership over development projects, as compared with exclusion from or delegation of decisions. Yet there are a wide variety of methods that can be used to engage individuals directly in group decision making, and there is limited guidance on the design of collective choice institutions for achieving more socially optimal long-run outcomes. In this presentation, I will discuss evidence from two closely related experiments, one in the lab and one in the field (with co-author Michael Touchton), in which we randomly vary different participatory decision processes, ranging from purely aggregative to more deliberative approaches to group decision making. Both take place in the context of local public good provision in Kenya, where the constitution requires some form of citizen participation in government spending decisions and where the creation of local public goods is still quite salient due to a lack of basic infrastructure such as potable water systems. I will present data on the achievement of more socially optimal outcomes from the laboratory setting and on behavioral measures of long-run collective action from the field setting. We find that more deliberative procedures may lead to better decisions, but that these benefits do not necessarily translate into higher satisfaction among participants nor into greater long-run collective action. Our findings highlight tradeoffs in institutional design and suggest that practitioners and policy-makers should employ more demanding procedures only when they stand to be particularly impactful.  

Bio: 

Tara Grillos is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University and co-director of the JMK Experimental Social Science Research Lab. She received her PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado’s Institute of Behavioral Science. Grillos teaches courses on environmental policy, causal inference, and experimental methods. Her research focuses on the human dimensions of sustainable development policy. She is interested in questions of participation, deliberation, collective action, and public goods provision, particularly with respect to natural resource dilemmas in developing countries. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

27 Sep

SocSES Webinar with Adriana Molina Garzón on Collaboration and Conflict

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the PECS webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Can interventions reduce extreme poverty in rural areas while conserving the environment? Evidence from RCTs

Abstract:

Balancing extreme poverty reduction with environmental conservation in rural LMICs requires credible causal evidence about which program designs deliver joint gains and when trade-offs arise. We conducted a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in rural, forested contexts, adopting a multi-outcome approach that includes poverty (income, assets, consumption, living conditions, labor, agricultural production) and conservation (forest cover/land-use change; biodiversity when available). Our search across multiple sources resulted in 112 RCT studies, with only 5 measuring both poverty and conservation results. Preliminary synthesis indicates: (i) on poverty, main gains concentrate in assets and income and were most common under monetary and mixed designs; non-monetary programs showed fewer short-run welfare effects. (ii) On conservation, significant positive effects were more frequently reported by non-monetary designs, especially training/extension and monitoring, primarily on forest presence; monetary and mixed designs yielded few significant conservation effects. (iii) Among the five dual-outcome RCTs, avoided-deforestation PES consistently delivered environmental wins with neutral short-run poverty effects; auction-based targeting improved environmental performance; intensive technical assistance paired with training achieved joint gains; unconditional liquidity raised deforestation risk; and production re-specialization (e.g., eco-tourism) showed localized environmental benefits with slower income responses. Cross-cutting design features such as conditionality, monitoring, targeting, and implementation intensity (e.g., ongoing TA), appeared to mediate impacts, and short evaluation horizons often limited detection of slower-moving welfare effects. This review develops a typology of intervention modalities and a preliminary mapping from design features to likely outcome patterns, while highlighting critical evidence gaps: few RCTs measuring both domains, limited biodiversity outcomes, and heterogeneous, context-dependent effects.   

Bio: 

Adriana Molina-Garzón is an Assistant Professor at the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indianapolis. Her primary research focuses on the factors that hinder or promote sustainable development in rural areas, with particular attention to governance arrangements that enable such development. She is especially interested in community-based approaches, the role of NGOs, and collaborations among these actors.  

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

8 Jun

SocSES/PECS Webinar with Maria Mancilla Garcia on Collaboration and Conflict

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the PECS webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Investigating horizontal conflicts: Tackling socio-environmental conflicts where roles are complex and changing

Abstract:

Environmental conflicts have been studied from a multiplicity of perspectives within the different sub disciplines of environmental studies. Within Political Ecology, for example, there is a long tradition of studying the root causes of environmental conflicts as well as their transformative potential as a process that might give voice to marginalized actors, or allow them to craft alliances beyond the apparent borders of the conflict. Within managerial approaches to environmental governance, conflict has often been seen as a problem to solve or to avoid, and influenced by deliberative perspectives, participation has been presented as a way forward to address potential conflicts. In this presentation, I would like to develop a theoretical perspective on conflict that considers it as entangled with collaboration, where roles and relationships are complex and intertwined. I use the idea of “horizontal conflicts” as a way to convey the multiplicity of responsibilities and positions that such type of conflict entails, where power endowments are ambiguous and changing. I bring to the discussion reflections from several cases, namely our work with coastal communities in Kenya and Mozambique where we used Forum Theatre as a research method to investigate horizontal conflicts, my collaboration with colleagues using a diversity of methods to understand the eutrophication crises of the Mar Menor Lagoon in Spain and the associated management decisions, and preliminary analysis of interview and observation data from a new project focusing on the conflict between fisheries management and seal and cormorant conservation in the Swedish Baltic Sea.   

Bio: 

Maria Mancilla Garcia is a researcher and theme leader at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Her research covers theoretical work on process-relational perspectives, i.e. perspectives that put the emphasis on the role of ever-evolving relations in crafting and changing social-ecological systems, with a focus on conflict and collaboration dynamics understood as entangled. Maria’s research investigates a diversity of empirical governance cases related to water and sea governance with special attention to the role of street-level public officers. She uses a multiplicity of methods which range from network analysis and traditional qualitative research methods such as semi-structured interviewing, to more innovative ones such as co-production dialogues and arts-based approaches. She reflects on her engagement with theoretical, empirical and methodological advancements through her work as theme leader for the theme Doing Sustainability Research: The How. Maria is an environmental social scientist with background in political science, development studies and philosophy, but has always worked in collaboration with natural scientists, especially marine biologists, ecologists and ecological modellers.  

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

6 Jun

SocSES/PECS Webinar with Julianna Merçon and Loni Hensler on Beyond methods

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the PECS webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Beyond methods: An experience of collective stewardship of territories in Mexico

Abstract:

Participatory methods are praised as drivers for urgent transformations to address multiple crises and, at the same time, they are criticized as the new tyranny to legitimize decisions and research outcomes. This presentation is an invitation to revisit the notion of methods and the way in which they have been implemented in order to open new paths for transformation. From the collective journey of the Forest Stewards Network that celebrates 10 years of existence in Xalapa, Veracruz, we share insights into the complex life of collaborative multi-stakeholder processes. We present three key participatory experiences and their corresponding lessons: i. the citizens’ meeting from which the network’s territorial shared management process emerged, ii. the collaborative construction of utopias for strategic planning, and iii. the learning tours through the territories, with exchanges from a peasant to peasant approach. We question the central place often attributed to methods and discuss other fundamental dimensions of collective processes oriented towards justice and sustainability. What lies beyond methods? How do we facilitate socio-ecological transformation processes? 

Bio: 

Juliana Merçon is a researcher at the Institute for Research in Education at Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico. She conducts participatory action research in collaboration with urban and rural networks, organizations and communities. Juliana works with agroecological, feminist and decolonial approaches and has participated in the Forest Stewards Network since its conception. 

Loni Hensler practices the art of facilitating and systematizing participatory processes of collective action towards a comanagement of more just and sustainable territories with rural, urban, indigenous and fisher communities. She works on transformative learning, diverse values around nature, the defense of territory and the construction of horizontalities from a collaborative action-research approach. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) and a member of multiple networks. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

10 Apr

PECS Webinar with Holly Nesbitt on the Collaborations and Social Capital

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the PECS webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Do community collaboratives build or borrow social capital? Equity implications for improving resilience to wildfire

Abstract:

Collaborative governance is a ubiquitous tool for addressing policy problems that cross jurisdictional or administrative boundaries, particularly in the environmental realm. Although it’s commonly regarded as a tool that helps enhance social capital among collaborative participants, we know little about whether collaborative governance builds new social capital–that is, relationships that create access to new resources and knowledge–or borrows it from pre-existing relationships or conditions. Such an understanding is important for determining the equity implications of using collaborative governance as a tool for developing plans and policy for environmental issues. If collaborative governance only exists in places with high pre-existing social capital, all of the benefits that presumably accrue from collaboratively developed plans–including leveraging resources for implementation, expanding the scope of management, and achieving collective goals–may be flowing disproportionately to the social-capital-rich. Thus, we ask: to what extent does collaborative governance perpetuate the status quo or enable transformative change? Using a dataset of collaboratively-developed Community Wildfire Protection Plans from the fire-prone western US, we assessed the social-ecological factors associated with the emergence of collaborative plans and networks for wildfire adaptation. We used publicly available datasets of social capital metrics and wildfire risk in a time-to-event model to understand the extent to which social capital is borrowed from pre-existing relationships or built in response to elevated wildfire risk to engage in collaborative planning. Results from our time-to-event analysis suggest that collaborative emergence may initially exacerbate social capital disparities associated with wildfire, however a subsequent preliminary network analysis reveals that this effect may be somewhat dampened by sharing social capital through key brokers across planning networks. Our results challenge commonly held, but rarely empirical, truisms in the collaborative governance literature about social capital being an inevitable outcome of collaborative processes. We end with a question for discussion–to what extent does the sharing of institutional knowledge across communities with different levels/types of social capital enhance collaborative benefits or limit institutional fit of a plan to a community?

Bio: 

Holly K. Nesbitt is a social-ecological systems scientist studying collaborative governance as an approach for achieving sustainable and equitable adaptation to global change. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Boise State University (Idaho, US) focused on the utility of collaborative governance as a policy tool for societal adaptation to wildfire. She draws on theories of social-ecological system resilience and transformation, institutional development and fit, public policy, planned behavior, social relations, and scale and uses predominantly quantitative methods including social network analysis and regression. Her previous work has examined other cross-boundary issues including invasive plant spread, wildlife movement, and watershed connectivity. She has a PhD in Forest & Conservation Sciences from the University of Montana and seven years of experience facilitating diverse groups to develop plans and policies that address environmental issues.

Co-authors on the associated paper: Nícola Ulibarrí, Matthew Hamilton, Matthew Williamson

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

27 Jan

PECS Webinar with Andrea Marais-Potgieter on the Nature Futures Framework

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the PECS webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Expanding Stakeholders: Including Non-Human Species in Futures Thinking

Abstract:

The Nature Futures Framework is a heuristic tool that focuses on envisioning positive human-nature relationships. The tool is aimed at exploring plural perspectives when it comes to imagining transformative, multi-scale scenarios for nature. However, this method is inherently anthropocentric, as humans are placed at the centre of the process of coming up with desirable futures, goals, and visions that can inform decision-making by humans for both humans and nature. This study aims to soften this limitation by exploring a complementary ecopsychology method based on the ‘Council of All Beings’ where participants are asked to step aside from their human identity and speak on behalf of another species. In two workshops—one utilising the Nature Futures Framework and another incorporating the Council of All Beings process—we compare the depth and types of futures that emerge. The results describe the potential of incorporating trans-species accompaniment into the Nature Futures Framework tool. In doing so, it expands the concept of plurality in futures work, opening more diverse value perspectives for nature. Additionally, it offers a novel perspective on the development of nature-people scenarios which could inform nature for nature policies.

Bio: 

Dr. Andrea Marais-Potgieter is a Conservation Psychologist specialising in social-ecological systems. She is based in Cape Town, South Africa. With over 20 years of experience in psychological research across 17 African countries, she has spent nearly a decade focusing on the intricate human-nature nexus. Her work investigates the diverse ways people relate to nature, the factors shaping these relationships, and how life experiences, psychological influences, and existential concerns affect perceptions of the environment and animals.

Currently, Andrea is part of a global project, Solving the Sustainability Challenges at the Food-Climate-Biodiversity Nexus in the Marine Environment, with Prof. Laura Pereira at the Global Change Institute. This initiative spans West Africa, Canada, China, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands, employing the Nature Futures Framework to navigate the future of human-nature relationships through three core values of nature. She also has a deep interest in trans-species accompaniment, a concept that integrates non-human perspectives into decision-making processes that affect them.

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.

22 Oct

PECS Webinar with Eva Sievers on Place-Based Knowledge Transfers

Posted by michaelschoon in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the PECS webinar series.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Title: 

Place-based knowledge transfer in a local-to-global and knowledge-to-action context: key steps and facilitative factors

Abstract:

Place-based research can enhance effectiveness of global sustainability policies and actions by providing contextualized knowledge underpinning bottom-up solutions. However, the use and transfer of place-based knowledge remains a major challenge. In this study, we analyze place-based knowledge transfer in a local-to-global and knowledge-to-action context. We aim to provide insights on when, how, and why place-based research can inform decision making at the global scale and lead to action toward more sustainable and just futures. We identified four key steps (place-based knowledge production, knowledge synthesis, knowledge use at the global scale, and knowledge revision and lessons learned) and five facilitative factors (bridging organizations, knowledge brokers, boundary organizations, institutionalized knowledge governance, and polycentric governance systems), which provide a comprehensive understanding of place-based knowledge transfer. Our conceptual framework provides suggestions on how to set up place-based knowledge transfer to be more effective, complete, and inclusive. Finally, we discuss two major structural barriers that currently inhibit place-based knowledge transfer and show ways forward for science and policy to overcome these. We argue that place-based knowledge transfer can be an effective means to undo dominant power relations and the epistemic status quo and enable a shift from short-termism in science and policy toward more long-term SES goals. Therefore, it is seminal to open up the predominant value system to more diverse knowledge systems, signifying a shift away from global decision making that is guided by neoliberal capitalist principles and over-emphasizes short-term and individual gains. Finally, it is crucial to prioritize learning over knowing to exploit the long-term value of place-based knowledge transfer.

Bio: 

Eva has a study background in Physical Geography (BSc) and Governance of Sustainability (MSc), from which she graduated in 2022. She worked as a research assistant at Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) (Department of Environmental Politics) focussing on social-ecological systems research and water-energy-food-ecosystem (WEFE) nexus governance. As part of the European Union’s Horizon2020 programme funded project NEXOGENESIS, she helped developing a WEFE nexus governance assessment tool and was in the lead of applying it to the Inkomati-Usuthu river basin in South Africa. Last year, Eva started an interfaculty PhD on transformative change at Leiden University involving the Institutes of Environmental Sciences, Cultural Anthropology and Public Administration (supervised by Marja Spierenburg, Jan Willem Erisman and Alexander van Oudenhoven). In her PhD research, Eva explores different facets of transformative change, trying to gain a deeper understanding of how the concept can be dismantled to make it more actionable on the ground and how action by local initiatives can contribute to fundamental, system-wide change processes.

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.