June 19-21, 2013
Call for Papers
Climate change is considered by many to be the greatest challenge to humanity ― a “perfect storm” that will lead to unprecedented social and ecological impacts unless addressed in a comprehensive, urgent manner. Yet there is a growing recognition that traditional, “business-as-usual” approaches to mitigation and adaptation are insufficient to address the breadth, scale and complexity of challenges associated with climate change. In fact, there have been many calls for new modes of thinking about multiple interacting processes, policies, and programs, and both scientific and policy discourses increasingly emphasize the need for deliberate transformation in response to climate change. There are, however, significant research gaps on transformation that are critical to address. What do we actually mean by transformation? Do we know how to make it happen? Do we have a sufficient knowledge base to inform strategies and actions for deliberate, ethical and sustainable transformation at the rate and scale that is called for? What is the role of science in the transformation process?
The “Transformation in a Changing Climate” conference aims to fill these gaps by bringing together diverse perspectives on deliberate transformation in response to climate change. The conference will serve as a creative, innovative and inspirational gathering that catalyzes new insights on transformation processes and the implications for research, policy and practice. Such insights will contribute to international transdisciplinary research initiatives, including Future Earth.
Venue, Dates and Format
The conference will take place at Georg Sverdrups Hus at the University of Oslo in Norway, from Wednesday, June 19 to Friday, June 21, 2013. The conference will include a wide range of both conventional and unconventional activities, events and workshops based around the theme of transformation.
Conference Themes
The conference is structured around nine themes that are listed below:
- The Economics of Transformation
- The Politics of Transformation
- Technical and Infrastructural Transformation
- Urban Transformation
- Community-based Transformation
- Transformative Learning and Leadership
- Social-ecological Transformation
- Transformation of Values, Norms and Worldviews
- Transformation of Research and Policy
- The Art of Transformation
While we are interested in papers that are directly linked to one or several of these themes, we also welcome those that cut across themes to look at the linkages between different scales and dimensions of transformation. In particular, we are interested in understanding relationships between personal, cultural and systems transformation. We seek papers that address questions such as:
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What types of transformation are considered necessary?
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What factors facilitate transformation in theory and in practice, across different systems, sectors, and domains?
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What types of capacities and competencies need to be developed to initiate and facilitate transformations that are both ethical and sustainable?
- How does science itself need to change, and how can new approaches to global change research contribute to transformation of both theory and practice?
Abstract Submission: Deadline on November 1, 2012
Submission of abstracts for oral presentations will be open until November 1, 2012. We kindly ask you to submit abstracts of no more than 250 words by email, in a Windows-compatible Word format to: transformation-conference@sosgeo.uio.no. Authors will be notified about the review process by December 1, 2012 via email. If the abstract is accepted, then full papers of 3000 – 6000 words will be due on May 1, 2013. A selection of presented papers will be published in special journal issues.
Information and Contact
For further information please visit the conference website: www.iss.uio.no/transformation, or contact us at Linda.Sygna@sosgeo.uio.no.
