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Decades of research and policy interventions on biodiversity have insufficiently addressed the dual issues of biodiversity degradation and social justice. New approaches are therefore needed. We devised a research and action agenda that calls for a collective task of revisiting biodiversity toward the goal of sustaining diverse and just futures for life on Earth. Revisiting biodiversity involves critically reflecting on past and present research, policy, and practice concerning biodiversity to inspire creative thinking about the future. The agenda was developed through a 2-year dialogue process that involved close to 300 experts from diverse disciplines and locations. This process was informed by social science insights that show biodiversity research and action is underpinned by choices about how problems are conceptualized. Recognizing knowledge, action, and ethics as inseparable, we synthesized a set of principles that help navigate the task of revisiting biodiversity. The agenda articulates 4 thematic areas for future research. First, researchers need to revisit biodiversity narratives by challenging conceptualizations that exclude diversity and entrench the separation of humans, cultures, economies, and societies from nature. Second, researchers should focus on the relationships between the Anthropocene, biodiversity, and culture by considering humanity and biodiversity as tied together in specific contexts. Third, researchers should focus on nature and economies by better accounting for the interacting structures of economic and financial systems as core drivers of biodiversity loss. Finally, researchers should enable transformative biodiversity research and action by reconfiguring relationships between human and nonhuman communities in and through science, policy, and practice. Revisiting biodiversity necessitates a renewed focus on dialogue among biodiversity communities and beyond that critically reflects on the past to channel research and action toward fo, Las décadas de investigación e intervenciones políticas sobre la biodiversidad han tratado significativamente los temas de la degradación de la biodiversidad y la justicia social. Debido a esto, se requieren nuevas estrategias. Diseñamos una agenda de investigación y acción que llama a la labor colectiva de revisar la biodiversidad hacia el objetivo de sustentar un futuro diverso y justo para la vida sobre la Tierra. Cuando se revisa la biodiversidad, se requiere de una reflexión crítica sobre las investigaciones, políticas y prácticas presentes y pasadas sobre la biodiversidad para inspirar un pensamiento creativo acerca del futuro. Desarrollamos la agenda por medio de un proceso de diálogo de dos años que involucró a casi 300 expertos de diversas disciplinas y localidades. Este proceso estuvo orientado por el conocimiento de las ciencias sociales que muestra cómo la investigación y la acción para la biodiversidad están sostenidas por las opciones de cómo están conceptualizados los problemas. Reconocimos al conocimiento, la acción y la ética como inseparables y sintetizamos un conjunto de principios que ayuda a navegar la labor de revisar la biodiversidad. La agenda articula cuatro áreas temáticas para la investigación en el futuro. Primero, los investigadores necesitan revisar las narrativas de la biodiversidad mediante el cuestionamiento de las conceptualizaciones que excluyen a la diversidad y consolidan la separación entre humanos, culturas, economías y sociedades y la naturaleza. Segundo, los investigadores deberían enfocarse en las relaciones entre el antropoceno, la biodiversidad y la cultura al considerar a la humanidad y la biodiversidad como interconectadas en contextos específicos. Tercero, los investigadores deberían enfocarse en la naturaleza y las economías al tener en mejor cuenta la interacción de las estructuras de los sistemas económico y financiero como conductores nucleares de la pérdida de la biodiversidad. Finalmente, los investigadores deberí

Item does not contain fulltext, Research practice, funding agencies and global science organizations suggest that research aimed at addressing sustainability challenges is most effective when ‘co-produced’ by academics and non-academics. Co-production promises to address the complex nature of contemporary sustainability challenges better than more traditional scientific approaches. But definitions of knowledge co-production are diverse and often contradictory. We propose a set of four general principles that underlie high-quality knowledge co-production for sustainability research. Using these principles, we offer practical guidance on how to engage in meaningful co-productive practices, and how to evaluate their quality and success.

11 september 2019, Contains fulltext : 228725.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)

Decades of research and policy interventions on biodiversity have insufficiently addressed the dual issues of biodiversity degradation and social justice. New approaches are therefore needed. We devised a research and action agenda that calls for a collective task of revisiting biodiversity toward the goal of sustaining diverse and just futures for life on Earth. Revisiting biodiversity involves critically reflecting on past and present research, policy, and practice concerning biodiversity to inspire creative thinking about the future. The agenda was developed through a 2-year dialogue process that involved close to 300 experts from diverse disciplines and locations. This process was informed by social science insights that show biodiversity research and action is underpinned by choices about how problems are conceptualized. Recognizing knowledge, action, and ethics as inseparable, we synthesized a set of principles that help navigate the task of revisiting biodiversity. The agenda articulates 4 thematic areas for future research. First, researchers need to revisit biodiversity narratives by challenging conceptualizations that exclude diversity and entrench the separation of humans, cultures, economies, and societies from nature. Second, researchers should focus on the relationships between the Anthropocene, biodiversity, and culture by considering humanity and biodiversity as tied together in specific contexts. Third, researchers should focus on nature and economies by better accounting for the interacting structures of economic and financial systems as core drivers of biodiversity loss. Finally, researchers should enable transformative biodiversity research and action by reconfiguring relationships between human and nonhuman communities in and through science, policy, and practice. Revisiting biodiversity necessitates a renewed focus on dialogue among biodiversity communities and beyond that critically reflects on the past to channel research and action toward fo

The most critical question for climate research is no longer about the problem, but about how to facilitate the transformative changes necessary to avoid catastrophic climate-induced change. Addressing this question, however, will require massive upscaling of research that can rapidly enhance learning about transformations. Ten essentials for guiding action-oriented transformation and energy research are therefore presented, framed in relation to second-order science. They include: (1) Focus on transformations to low-carbon, resilient living; (2) Focus on solution processes; (3) Focus on ‘how to’ practical knowledge; (4) Approach research as occurring from within the system being intervened; (5) Work with normative aspects; (6) Seek to transcend current thinking; (7) Take a multi-faceted approach to understand and shape change; (8) Acknowledge the value of alternative roles of researchers; (9) Encourage second-order experimentation; and (10) Be reflexive. Joint application of the essentials would create highly adaptive, reflexive, collaborative and impact-oriented research able to enhance capacity to respond to the climate challenge. At present, however, the practice of such approaches is limited and constrained by dominance of other approaches. For wider transformations to low carbon living and energy systems to occur, transformations will therefore also be needed in the way in which knowledge is produced and used.

Research synthesis is the integration of existing knowledge and research findings pertinent to an issue. The aim of synthesis is to increase the generality and applicability of those findings and to develop new knowledge through the process of integration. Synthesis is promoted as an approach that deals with the challenge of öinformation overload’, delivering products that further our understanding of problems and distil relevant evidence for decision-making. However, despite the increasing prominence of synthesis efforts in the science and policy landscape, we know very little about the impacts these initiatives have on research, policy and practice and the assumptions underpinning how they will lead to change. This paper presents a framework for considering the conceptual, strategic, instrumental and network-based impacts of research synthesis on policy. This framework provides insight into the range of underlying assumptions and impacts on policy and practice from 10 case studies of research synthesis related to contemporary sustainability challenges. Findings suggest that research synthesis is having diverse impacts on research, policy and practice including creating a new understanding of problems, establishing new networks, and contributing to changes in policy and practice. These impacts emerged across a range of contexts, synthesis methods, assumptions and operating models. This suggests that there is no single öcorrect way’ to design research synthesis for impact, but rather a need to tailor the approach for the context of intended use.

Existing biodiversity conservation practice systems are not fit for purpose. The term “systemic failure” is often used to describe such dysfunctional systems, but often with little insight as to which attributes contribute to the failure. Drawing on a tradition of systems thinking in practice, viewing conservation practice through the idea of a ‘system of interest’ can illustrate where failure of practice may be present, and where action might be directed to correct the failure. Conservation practice is here rendered as an iron triangle; a malign system that perpetuates failure. One of the dysfunctional attributes of conservation is the propensity for practice (‘doing’) at the expense of thinking (‘knowing’). A core attribute of systems thinking in practice is the duality between being systemic (thinking holistically) and systematic (enacting systems amongst practitioners). In this essay, notions of ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ are examined as synonyms for thinking and practice. One aspect of a malignant iron triangle might be characterised as manifesting a dualism rather than a duality. A dualism exists when there is a focus on either ‘knowing’ or ‘doing’, thinking or practice. Good systems thinking in conservation practice ought to exhibit a continual duality between being systemic and being systematic. The essay invites suggestions on what may constitute a more benign systemic conservation praxis.

Stemming biodiversity loss requires taking responsibility for the quality and trajectory of unfolding socialbiosphere dynamics through transformations to systemic governance. Existing systems are woefully inadequate for the task at hand – from preferential lobbying by big business corrupting decision-making to conventional economics treating the ‘environment’ as an externality. Biodiversity will continue to decline without the reinvention of governance at all levels. We propose a new model through the addition of the ‘Biosphere’, ‘Technosphere’, and ‘Social Purpose’ to the contemporary governance model. This would place biosphere-human relations at its centre, with the invention and enactment of new institutions for social purpose, using expressions of democracy going far beyond electoral representation. Biodiversity conservation is dependent on co-design with local actors – it cannot succeed from a remote desk. In turn, this will mean taking responsibility for the framing choices applied to situations of concern as the first critical steps for thinking differently; incorporating multiple perspectives; and designing for purpose. Designed human activity systems to carry out these steps will come in many forms. All will need systemic sensibilities characterised by relational thinking and practice, investment in systems literacy and the deployment of STiP (systems thinking in practice) by co-designers and enactors of new governance systems.

Decades of research and policy interventions on biodiversity have insufficiently addressed the dual issues of biodiversity degradation and social justice. New approaches are therefore needed. We devised a research and action agenda that calls for a collective task of revisiting biodiversity toward the goal of sustaining diverse and just futures for life on Earth. Revisiting biodiversity involves critically reflecting on past and present research, policy, and practice concerning biodiversity to inspire creative thinking about the future. The agenda was developed through a 2-year dialogue process that involved close to 300 experts from diverse disciplines and locations. This process was informed by social science insights that show biodiversity research and action is underpinned by choices about how problems are conceptualized. Recognizing knowledge, action, and ethics as inseparable, we synthesized a set of principles that help navigate the task of revisiting biodiversity. The agenda articulates 4 thematic areas for future research. First, researchers need to revisit biodiversity narratives by challenging conceptualizations that exclude diversity and entrench the separation of humans, cultures, economies, and societies from nature. Second, researchers should focus on the relationships between the Anthropocene, biodiversity, and culture by considering humanity and biodiversity as tied together in specific contexts. Third, researchers should focus on nature and economies by better accounting for the interacting structures of economic and financial systems as core drivers of biodiversity loss. Finally, researchers should enable transformative biodiversity research and action by reconfiguring relationships between human and nonhuman communities in and through science, policy, and practice. Revisiting biodiversity necessitates a renewed focus on dialogue among biodiversity communities and beyond that critically reflects on the past to channel research and action toward fo

Existing biodiversity conservation practice systems are not fit for purpose. The term “systemic failure” is often used to describe such dysfunctional systems, but often with little insight as to which attributes contribute to the failure. Drawing on a tradition of systems thinking in practice, viewing conservation practice through the idea of a ‘system of interest’ can illustrate where failure of practice may be present, and where action might be directed to correct the failure. Conservation practice is here rendered as an iron triangle; a malign system that perpetuates failure. One of the dysfunctional attributes of conservation is the propensity for practice (‘doing’) at the expense of thinking (‘knowing’). A core attribute of systems thinking in practice is the duality between being systemic (thinking holistically) and systematic (enacting systems amongst practitioners). In this essay, notions of ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ are examined as synonyms for thinking and practice. One aspect of a malignant iron triangle might be characterised as manifesting a dualism rather than a duality. A dualism exists when there is a focus on either ‘knowing’ or ‘doing’, thinking or practice. Good systems thinking in conservation practice ought to exhibit a continual duality between being systemic and being systematic. The essay invites suggestions on what may constitute a more benign systemic conservation praxis.

Stemming biodiversity loss requires taking responsibility for the quality and trajectory of unfolding socialbiosphere dynamics through transformations to systemic governance. Existing systems are woefully inadequate for the task at hand – from preferential lobbying by big business corrupting decision-making to conventional economics treating the ‘environment’ as an externality. Biodiversity will continue to decline without the reinvention of governance at all levels. We propose a new model through the addition of the ‘Biosphere’, ‘Technosphere’, and ‘Social Purpose’ to the contemporary governance model. This would place biosphere-human relations at its centre, with the invention and enactment of new institutions for social purpose, using expressions of democracy going far beyond electoral representation. Biodiversity conservation is dependent on co-design with local actors – it cannot succeed from a remote desk. In turn, this will mean taking responsibility for the framing choices applied to situations of concern as the first critical steps for thinking differently; incorporating multiple perspectives; and designing for purpose. Designed human activity systems to carry out these steps will come in many forms. All will need systemic sensibilities characterised by relational thinking and practice, investment in systems literacy and the deployment of STiP (systems thinking in practice) by co-designers and enactors of new governance systems.