Complexity of Sustainability Fund
To accelerate the transition to a just and sustainable world, we require a holistic understanding of the complex structures and paradigms that underlie sustainability challenges. This knowledge should be co-produced in a way that is inclusive of diverse actors and their differing and sometimes clashing perspectives. The Complexity of Sustainability fund has been set up to help build a diverse transdisciplinary community of UU researchers and societal stakeholders focused on developing holistic approaches to stimulating a just and sustainable transition. Watch Ed and Marta’s story below to learn more.
The fund is a joint initiative of the Pathways to Sustainability strategic theme and the Centre for Complex Systems Studies of Utrecht University. The fund aims to stimulate cooperation through workshops over a period of two years. These workshops will focus on a theme that leverages the diverse expertise at UU, to contribute to accelerating sustainability transitions.
The first workshop focused on making fundamental theoretical progress, with the justification and theme outlined below and was organised and carried out with the assistance of three student assistants.
Workshop 1: Co-produced complexity science for a just and sustainable transition
Complexity science sets out conceptual and methodological approaches that allow us to gain a holistic understanding of the world around us. Methods such as network analysis can inform us of how viruses or information spread through society. We can gain insight into how feedback processes give rise to non-linear change and path dependency, which are central to understand in the context of transitions. Complexity science is also essential to understanding how new technologies such as AI may influence our society.
However, complexity science tends to be carried out by quantitative modelers and data scientists. This means that a wide range of academic perspectives are excluded from the process, not to mention wider, non-academic perspectives. For complexity science to serve the sustainability transition, we require a more inclusive form of complexity science that involves diverse perspectives and actors. Complexity science must embrace approaches of knowledge co-production and participatory methods to gain a deeper holistic understanding of the differing norms, perspectives and values that are essential to gaining a holistic understanding of how we can accelerate towards a just and sustainable transition.
The workshop emerged out of a recognition that our understanding of sustainability challenges may be improved by integrating complexity science, which is the study of complex systems using methods such as network science and dynamical models, with participatory approaches that can reveal the role that factors such as perceptions, values and justice play in sustainability transitions.
Outcome of workshop 1
During the workshop,18 participants from different faculties and disciplines discussed their understanding of the concepts of complexity science and participatory methods, drawing on their different research domains and experiences. The discussion was inspired by three invited speakers with expertise in these themes, Bianca Vienni Baptista (ETH Zürich), Elisa Omodei (Central European University) and Örjan Bodin (Stockholm Resilience Centre).
Many promising avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration were identified. Notably, the integration of complexity science with participatory methods was identified as a pathway to inform stakeholder inclusion in participatory processes. Equally, an understanding of how complex adaptive systems evolve over time could both inform the participatory process but also the studying the participatory processes as a complex adaptive system could enrich complexity science approaches. Finally, workshop participants identified that there is still a need to develop a common language between these two areas of research, as well as creating interdisciplinary competencies and training.
Subsequent Activities
This initial workshop was a first step into building more concrete avenues for collaboration between participatory methodologies and complexity science, and the participants began working on translating the insights into a paper. Following on from this a student assistant supported the team by carrying out a literature review, which ultimately will be developed into a position paper. This paper is due for submission in early 2024.
The long-term goal is to develop a community of researchers who wish to develop state of the art methods to practice co-produced complexity science for a just and sustainable transition. The team are enthusiastic to expand and strengthen this community over time.
If you are interested in joining the fund, please reach out to the organisers (see below) and keep an eye on the Pathways to Sustainability and CCSS newsletters for more updates from the community.
Brian Dermody, Geosciences
Ivan Kryven, Mathematics
Ioanna Lykourentzou, Computer Science
Qingyi Feng, Centre for Complex Systems Studies
Carla Alvial Palavicino, Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIP)
Emmy Ruiter, Pathways to Sustainability