Co-production of knowledge and sustainability transformations: a strategic compass for global research networks

An increasing number of voices highlight the need for science itself to transform and to engage in the co-production of knowledge and action, in order to enable the fundamental transformations needed to advance towards sustainable futures. But how can global sustainability-oriented research networks engage in co-production of knowledge and action? The present article introduces a strategic tool called the ‘network compass’ which highlights four generic, interrelated fields of action through which networks can strive to foster co-production. It is based on the networks’ particular functions and how these can be engaged for co-production processes. This tool aims to foster self-reflection and learning within and between networks in the process of (re)developing strategies and activity plans and effectively contributing to sustainability transformations

Corridors of clarity: four principles to overcome uncertainty paralysis in the Anthropocene

Global environmental change challenges humanity because of its broad scale, long-lasting, and potentially irreversible consequences. Key to an effective response is to use an appropriate scientific lens to peer through the mist of uncertainty that threatens timely and appropriate decisions surrounding these complex issues. Identifying such corridors of clarity could help understanding critical phenomena or causal pathways sufficiently well to justify taking policy action. To this end, we suggest four principles: Follow the strongest and most direct path between policy decisions on outcomes, focus on finding sufficient evidence for policy purpose, prioritize no-regrets policies by avoiding options with controversial, uncertain, or immeasurable benefits, aim for getting the big picture roughly right rather than focusing on details

The Southern African program on ecosystem change and society : an emergent community of practice

Sustainability-focused research networks and communities of practice have emerged as a key response and strategy to build capacity and knowledge to support transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. This paper synthesises insights from the development of a community of practice on social-ecological systems (SES) research in southern Africa over the past decade, linked to the international Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). This community consists of a network of researchers who carry out placebased SES research in the southern African region. They interact through various cross-cutting working groups and also host a variety of public colloquia and student and practitioner training events. Known as the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), its core objectives are to: (1) derive new approaches and empirical insights on SES dynamics in the southern African context; (2) have a tangible impact by mainstreaming knowledge into policy and practice; and (3) grow the community of practice engaged in SES research and governance, including researchers, students and practitioners. This paper reflects on experiences in building the SAPECS community, with the aim of supporting the development of similar networks elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Global South.https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/TBSMam2024Future AfricaSDG-11:Sustainable cities and communitie

Regime Shifts in the Anthropocene : drivers, risk, and resilience

Human action is driving worldwide change in ecosystems. While some of these changes have been gradual, others have led to surprising, large and persistent ecological regime shifts 1-4. Such shifts challenge ecological management and governance because they substantially alter the availability of ecosystems services 5, while being difficult to predict 6 and reverse2. Assessing whether continued global change will lead to further regime shifts, or has the potential trigger cascading regime shifts has been a central question in global change policy 7-9. Addressing this issue has, however, been hampered by the focus of regime shift research on specific cases or types of regime shifts 9-11. To systematically assess the global risk of regime shifts we conducted a comparative analysis of 25 types of regime shifts across marine, terrestrial and polar systems; identifying their drivers, and impacts on ecosystem services. We demonstrate that the drivers of regime shifts are diverse and widely shared among regime shifts, which suggests that continued global change can be expected to synchronously increase the risk of multiple regime shifts. Furthermore, many regime shift drivers are related to climate change and food production, whose tight links to the continued expansion of human activities makes them difficult to limit. Because many regime shifts can amplify the drivers of other regime shifts, continued global change can also be expected to increase the risk of cascading regime shifts 8,12. Nevertheless, the variety of scales at which regime shift drivers operate provides opportunities for reducing the risk of many types of regime shifts by addressing local or regional drivers, even in the absence of rapid reduction of global drivers

The Regime Shifts Database : A Framework for Analyzing Regime Shifts in Social-Ecological Systems

This paper presents the Regime Shifts Database (RSDB), a new online, open-access database that uses a novel consistent framework to systematically analyze regime shifts based on their impacts, key drivers, underlying feedbacks, and management options. The database currently contains 27 generic types of regime shifts, and over 300 specific case studies of a variety of regime shifts. These regime shifts occur across diverse types of systems and are driven by many different types of processes. Besides impacting provisioning and regulating services, our work shows that regime shifts substantially impact cultural and aesthetic ecosystem services. We found that social-ecological feedbacks are difficult to characterize and more work is needed to develop new tools and approaches to better understand social-ecological regime shifts. We hope that the database will stimulate further research on regime shifts and make available information that can be used in management, planning and assessment.

Regime Shifts in the Anthropocene : drivers, risk, and resilience

Human action is driving worldwide change in ecosystems. While some of these changes have been gradual, others have led to surprising, large and persistent ecological regime shifts 1-4. Such shifts challenge ecological management and governance because they substantially alter the availability of ecosystems services 5, while being difficult to predict 6 and reverse2. Assessing whether continued global change will lead to further regime shifts, or has the potential trigger cascading regime shifts has been a central question in global change policy 7-9. Addressing this issue has, however, been hampered by the focus of regime shift research on specific cases or types of regime shifts 9-11. To systematically assess the global risk of regime shifts we conducted a comparative analysis of 25 types of regime shifts across marine, terrestrial and polar systems; identifying their drivers, and impacts on ecosystem services. We demonstrate that the drivers of regime shifts are diverse and widely shared among regime shifts, which suggests that continued global change can be expected to synchronously increase the risk of multiple regime shifts. Furthermore, many regime shift drivers are related to climate change and food production, whose tight links to the continued expansion of human activities makes them difficult to limit. Because many regime shifts can amplify the drivers of other regime shifts, continued global change can also be expected to increase the risk of cascading regime shifts 8,12. Nevertheless, the variety of scales at which regime shift drivers operate provides opportunities for reducing the risk of many types of regime shifts by addressing local or regional drivers, even in the absence of rapid reduction of global drivers

Regime Shifts in the Anthropocene : drivers, risk, and resilience

Human action is driving worldwide change in ecosystems. While some of these changes have been gradual, others have led to surprising, large and persistent ecological regime shifts 1-4. Such shifts challenge ecological management and governance because they substantially alter the availability of ecosystems services 5, while being difficult to predict 6 and reverse2. Assessing whether continued global change will lead to further regime shifts, or has the potential trigger cascading regime shifts has been a central question in global change policy 7-9. Addressing this issue has, however, been hampered by the focus of regime shift research on specific cases or types of regime shifts 9-11. To systematically assess the global risk of regime shifts we conducted a comparative analysis of 25 types of regime shifts across marine, terrestrial and polar systems; identifying their drivers, and impacts on ecosystem services. We demonstrate that the drivers of regime shifts are diverse and widely shared among regime shifts, which suggests that continued global change can be expected to synchronously increase the risk of multiple regime shifts. Furthermore, many regime shift drivers are related to climate change and food production, whose tight links to the continued expansion of human activities makes them difficult to limit. Because many regime shifts can amplify the drivers of other regime shifts, continued global change can also be expected to increase the risk of cascading regime shifts 8,12. Nevertheless, the variety of scales at which regime shift drivers operate provides opportunities for reducing the risk of many types of regime shifts by addressing local or regional drivers, even in the absence of rapid reduction of global drivers

The Regime Shifts Database : A Framework for Analyzing Regime Shifts in Social-Ecological Systems

This paper presents the Regime Shifts Database (RSDB), a new online, open-access database that uses a novel consistent framework to systematically analyze regime shifts based on their impacts, key drivers, underlying feedbacks, and management options. The database currently contains 27 generic types of regime shifts, and over 300 specific case studies of a variety of regime shifts. These regime shifts occur across diverse types of systems and are driven by many different types of processes. Besides impacting provisioning and regulating services, our work shows that regime shifts substantially impact cultural and aesthetic ecosystem services. We found that social-ecological feedbacks are difficult to characterize and more work is needed to develop new tools and approaches to better understand social-ecological regime shifts. We hope that the database will stimulate further research on regime shifts and make available information that can be used in management, planning and assessment.

Are we entering an era of concatenated global crises?

An increase in the frequency and intensity of environmental crises associated with accelerating human-induced global change is of substantial concern to policy makers. The potential impacts, especially on the poor, are exacerbated in an increasingly connected world that enables the emergence of crises that are coupled in time and space. We discuss two factors that can interact to contribute to such an increased concatenation of crises: (1) the increasing strength of global vs. local drivers of change, so that changes become increasingly synchronized; and (2) unprecedented potential for the propagation of crises, and an enhanced risk of management interventions in one region becoming drivers elsewhere, because of increased connectivity. We discuss the oil-food-financial crisis of 2007 to 2008 as an example of a concatenated crisis with origin and ultimate impacts in far removed parts of the globe. The potential for a future of concatenated shocks requires adaptations in science and governance including (a) an increased tolerance of uncertainty and surprise, (b) strengthening capacity for early detection and response to shocks, and (c) flexibility in response to enable adaptation and learning