RECOMS, the acronym of REsourceful COMmunitieS, is a Marie Sklodowska Curie (MSCA) Innovative Training Network funded by the European Commission. It is comprised of a transdisciplinary consortium of scientists, practitioners and change agents from eleven public, private and non-profit organisations located in six European Union countries. RECOMS trains fifteen Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in transdisciplinary approaches to supporting resourceful and resilient community environmental practice. The aim is to advance our understanding how to nurture the inherent potential of all local stakeholders to become involved in creating adaptive and transformative sustainability pathways.
The researchers involved in RECOMS learn skills how to transform urban and rural environments for the health and wellbeing of vulnerable communities. Theoretically RECOMS applies a coupled social-ecological and critical lens to community resourcefulness and resilience, as complex, dynamic and process based, denoting the capacity of a system to change.
Restrictions in access to, exclusion from, or depletion of local resources, and retained or increasing problems of energy poverty, environmental injustice and food insecurity, are just some of the consequences of the unsustainable patterns of living, production and consumption provoked by processes of globalisation and uneven development. Climate change adds further complexity and vulnerability to this picture. A relational framing of community resourcefulness and critical evolutionary resilience is key to the program.
The 15 researchers involved carry out projects organised around three interconnected themes: Unlocking and Empowering; Adapting and Transforming; Collaborating and Connecting. That is:
- Empowering and unlocking the potential of vulnerable communities to become more resourceful
- Strengthening the adaptive and transformative capacity of local groups through resourceful environmental practice as critical to building community resilience
- Encouraging a more just and inclusive approach to stimulating community resourcefulness by nurturing broader participation in resourceful environmental practices.
A cross-cutting theme featuring across all projects, is the use of visual and creative research methods and techniques as a means of enhancing societal engagement, knowledge transfer and research impact. The consortium encompasses lead thinkers and practitioners in the development of socially innovative and participatory forms of creative and visual investigation and communication.
More information can be found on www.recoms.eu, while inspiring results will also be published on this blog.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 765389. RECOMS supported the technical development, hosting, and maintenance of the blog.