Towards a ‘Life-turn’ in Education: a Thought Experiment

This article explores the need for transformative change in higher education institutions (HEIs) to help address the complexity and existential risk resulting from multiple interconnected crises. First, it acknowledges that the rate and direction of change in HEIs have been inadequate and that, despite well-rehearsed obstacles and enablers, much more needs to be done to ensure HEIs can deliver human security. It then explores the rising calls for a renegotiation of the human-nature relationship (HNR) and renewed awareness and respect for all forms of life on Earth, emphasising that bold thinking and a departure from the dominant culture that disregards life are urgently needed. Such calls could be central to a repurposing of learning and education that views human security as intrinsically linked to the security of all life and life-supporting systems. Finally, it builds on notions of systems change theory linked to Donella Meadows’ leverage and uses the device of a ‘thought experiment’ to identify three questions for the present and future of HEIs, in line with Meadows’ three highest leverage points.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Green economy: fix our 'ends' not just our 'means'

While growth remains as our main goal economic and environmental crisis will persist. A green economy requires us to aim at development rather than growth, through the responsible promotion of justice, the common good, and environmental sustainability

Transdisciplinarity Revisited: Transformative Potential of Lessons We Might Learn

The title, “Enabling the City – inter- and transdisciplinary encounters and challenges in research and practice” emphasises the enabling environment and conditions that facilitate inter- and transdisciplinary processes. In order to enrich this discussion, it is helpful to explore the relationship between multi-, inter- and transdisciplinarity from additional perspectives compared with those introduced in Part I, ofering alternative interpretative layers to the defnitions ofered in Chapter I.3. In particular, we wish to explore both a critique of these approaches to knowledge production, and the possibility of a transformative potential, also discussed in Chapter IV.3.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Interface Planning Just Futures

We are said to be living in a time of multiple failures and crises (climate, biodiversity, health, inequality – to name a few now in the headlines) all playing out within a fast changing world. Behind the grand narratives of planetary boundaries and Anthropocene, is a world of increasing injustice and inequitable relationships – between humans and between humans and more-than human life. If our dominant systems fail to change, the unravelling of an existential crisis seems increasingly certain. Taking this, and much else, into account, a series of global policy agendas are combining to make a strong case for transformative change, through the rethinking of the so-called ‘human-nature relationship’.5 Indeed, we might say that the ‘Covid crisis’ has made the case for this irresistible, as well as opening up hitherto sealed doors of possibility to alternative pasts, presents and futures.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Environmental ethics: philosophy, ecology and other species

This chapter focuses on the dominant Western frames while acknowledging a welcome rise of alternative voices – often captured by the expression of “indigenous and local knowledge” – which will hopefully enrich the depth and breadth of our pathways into the future. Environmental ethics and its internal debates and tensions can provide precious insights to global environmental politics. The ethical conversation was the most lively and dynamic within environmental philosophy, giving rise to environmental ethics, which became an established discipline. Environmental ethics can therefore contribute to disciplinary pluralism in global environmental politics by engaging with the philosophical landscape that underpins the meta-narratives that shape our ideas of the human connection and dependence on nature. Early environmental ethics concentrated on attributing an intrinsic value to nature, above and beyond the instrumental one that had dominated the previous few centuries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The right to equal aspirations and the obligation to be different, as a basis for a common future

By virtue of its sheer size and growth trajectory, China knows it cannot be ignored. The question is whether it can offer leadership in terms of greater responsibility, both towards its own people and the rest of the world. The climate change crisis is the ultimate expression of unsustainable patterns of growth. Based on this perspective of the climate change debate, I explore the theme of responsibility as traditionally focused around the need to limit emissions, but also in terms of the obligation to pursue development aspirations through a different path. I consider the argument that China’s leadership has an opportunity to embark on a path that is consistent with the need to secure a ‘common future’, and highlight both the promise and contradictions of current policy. I conclude by challenging the idea that there is a significant difference between the position of China’s Government and that of most developed nations, and suggest that the promise of a new path for development might still be met if contradictions are finally acknowledged, and experimentation is adopted to pursue bold alternatives, rather than efficient growth models

1st INTREPID Policy Brief: Recommendations on Integrating Interdisciplinarity, the Social Sciences and the Humanities and Responsible Research and Innovation in EU Research

At a time when the European Commission and Member States are taking stock of the initial phase of Horizon 2020 programming and funding (EUCO 2013), the COST Action on Interdisciplinarity in research programming and funding cycles (INTREPID) contributes with a set of research policy recommendations arising from an international conference held in Lisbon in January 2017 on Interdisciplinary Futures and the need to open up the social sciences. A Special Session explored the concepts and practice of interdisciplinarity (ID), social sciences and humanities (SSH) and responsible R&I in the context of H2020, leading to recommendations in this Policy Brief.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Enabling the City: Learning for Transformational Change

Turning globally conceived agendas local means enabling interconnected and sustainable urban knowledge, and giving voice and legitimacy to a multiplicity of agencies, worldviews, ways of knowing and understanding the problems and the possibility for alternative ways of doing things. In this chapter, the authors reflected on the interconnections between these three policy arenas through the lens of the inter-and transdisciplinary experiments at the local level. They highlighted the strong link between the concept of learning and re-learning how to design and plan cities in a holistic manner, and collaborative and participatory processes entailing inter-and transdisciplinarity. To address the combination of resistance, limited capabilities and inevitable contradictions, inter-and transdisciplinary experiments – the framework as well as the INTREPID journey – call for new educational models and a reprioritising of the kind of knowledge that needs to be taught, away from technical skills towards softer competences and dispositions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Green(er) Cities and Their Citizens: Insights from the Participatory Budget of Lisbon

There is rising scholarly and political interest in participatory budgets and their potential toadvance urban sustainability. This article aims to contribute to this field of study through the specificlens of the city of Lisbon’s experience as an internationally acknowledged leader in participatorybudgeting. To this end, the article critically examines the lessons and potential contribution of theLisbon Participatory Budget through a multimethod approach. Emerging trends and variations ofcitizen proposals, projects, votes, and public funding are analysed in tandem with emerging key topicsthat show links and trade-offs between locally embedded participation and the international discourseon urban sustainability. Our analysis reveals three interconnected findings: first, the achievements ofthe Lisbon Participatory Budget show the potential to counteract the dominant engineered approachto urban sustainability; second, trends and variations of the achievements depend on both citizens’voice and the significant influence of the city council through policymaking; and, third, the shifttowards a thematic Green Participatory Budget in 2020 was not driven by consolidated social andpolitical awareness on the achievements, suggesting that more could be achieved through the 2021urban sustainability oriented Participatory Budget. We conclude recommending that this kind ofanalysis should be systematically carried out and disseminated within city council departments, promoting much needed internal awareness of PBs’ potential as drivers of urban sustainability. Wealso identify further research needed into the sustainability potential of green PBs

UNIVER(C)ITY. The future space and place of knowledge

Across the span of two days, academics, professionals and students from different institutions and with various disciplinary backgrounds gathered in Newcastle in order to discuss the current state-of-the-art concerning academia, knowledge production, as well as the physical, digital and mental spaces where these operate. Additionally, the group explored possible scenarios for envisaging the future of universities, a future where academia plays an active role in responding to tomorrow’s challenges and in bringing about positive and sustainable transformation within the cities and regions where they function. Throughout the three days, a series of insightful and provocative talks introduced a range of diverse and multi-faceted issues currently concerning academic institutions, calling for a critical reappraisal of the ways in which we teach, learn, think and produce knowledge, as well as the ways in which we build, manage, conceive and situate universities in light of rapid socio-economic, cultural and political change. The symposium concluded with participants dividing into three working groups which explored three different scenarios for the future of universities, tackling some of the provocations put forward during the presentations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio