Planning with Nature: What if nature takes a seat at the table?

Cor Busier’s Stakeholder Meeting Planners are used to procedures where human stakeholders can voice their opinions and concerns, but non-human stakeholders are seldom considered. For the course ‘Critical Approaches to Global Sustainability Challenges’ (University of Groningen), we made a video that aims to draw attention to the non-human stakeholders that are affected by a planner’s […]
Sustainable place-shaping: Can Masdeu

Can Masdeu is an eco-community and according to their website also “a network of projects that resists the voraciousness of a city without limits to the rhythm of the seasons. An act of creative disobedience to the world of money, smoke and ordinances, noise and speed. A proposal for collective cooperation and coexistence between generations…”. […]
Towards a new civic bureaucracy

By: Matthew J. Quinn Why does it often seem so difficult to engage with government bodies about the value of working in places and of co-producing ideas and actions with local communities? This has been something I’ve wrestled with over my career in public service in the UK and, more recently, as part of the […]
Do you want to discuss and brainstorm about how to achieve social impact through food policies and initiatives…?

…try the RE-ADJUSTool that is launched in January 2022! By playing the RE-ADJUSTool you will jointly discover what it takes to create a more equitable, inclusive and fair food system in your city. The RE-ADJUSTool enables policy makers, stakeholders and citizens to talk about and operationalise social justice within an urban food governance context. Download […]
Open Acces Book: Co-Creativity and Engaged Scholarship published!

The new book “Co-Creativity and Engaged Scholarship. Transformative Methods in Social Sustainability Research” has now been published online! The book has been editied by Alex Franklin and been published in the context of the EU Marie Curie ITN programs RECOMS. A unique overview of transdisciplinary approaches to researching and communicating community environmental practice Demonstrates how […]
THE CLIMATE CRISIS ASKS FOR MORE AMBITIOUS AND JOINT ACTION

We are facing a global climate crisis. Scientists are united on this and we are already witnessing the global socio-spatial consequences. Why then do we lack decisiveness? During an online Climate Summit in 2021 in The Hague, participants drew up an action agenda for climate adaptation (CAS, 2021). Furthermore a “Groningen Science Declaration” was handed […]
Summer School Cultural mapping

A Summer School on cultural mapping will be organised by CES in Caldas da Rainha in Portugal from 21-25 March 2022. See for more information the website. Cultural mapping as a methodology and paradigm holds tremendous power to create conditions for change by bringing communities together in new ways to co-create new knowledge and understanding. […]
AESOP conference this year in Tartu

The AESOP 2022 Congress ‘Space for Species: Redefining Spatial Justice’ will take place in Tartu, Estonia on July 25-29, 2022! The PhD Workshop takes place in Narva, Estonia, on July 20-23, 2022. The title is ‘Space for (all) Species: Creative Use of Data to Understand the Role of Planning’. We have announced the 15 main tracks on the website already. Look around to find an […]
Transforming knowledge systems

This blog is a re-use of the text posted by Niko Schäpke and Ioan Fazey: Visions of knowledge systems for life on Earth and how to get there, published in: Integration and Implementation Insights. How should formalized knowledge systems, including universities, research institutes and education, transform to keep pace with wider and inevitable societal transformations […]
Warning of scientists for climate-induced societal disruption

More than 500 scientists and scholars from over 30 countries, including myself, signed a letter published in The Guardian and Le Monde in December 2020. In this letter we warn for societal disruption & collapse due to climate change. A video of some of the signatories reading the letter to camera was also released through […]