PECS-III: Pathways to Sustainability

The PECS-III conference will take place in Montreal, Canada from 12-15 August 2024. The focus of the event will be on how to transform sustainable development to better contend with the challenges of the Anthropocene informed by issues and solutions in multiple knowledge and values. The conference will be co-hosted by The Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society, the Resilience Alliance, and NSERC ResNet.

PECS-III will gather a diverse group of scholars, policy-makers, stakeholders, practitioners, and Indigenous rights-holders from across Canada and all over the planet to share cross-cutting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and insights on social-ecological dynamics in the Anthropocene. It will focus on the transformative changes needed in different contexts and places to bring society onto a sustainable path.

LTSER representatives will participate in Symposium 15 (S15): Long term socio-ecological research: practice and infrastructure on Wednesday, August 14, 2024 from 10:00 am - 11:30 am; at Salon International II - 3rd floor

Chair: Merav Cohen

The International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network and its European partner, eLTER RI (research infrastructure), have accumulated more than two decades of experience translating socio-ecological (SE) systems theory into practice through place-based research platforms across the world. Despite efforts to harmonize conceptual frameworks for conducting SE research, experiences continue to vary widely internationally. This is partially due to conflicting priorities - the first to assure a high degree of comparability across platforms and to collect observational data reflecting global-scale trends, and the second to recognize the centrality of stakeholder priorities within SE research to assure policy-relevance at the local scale. In other words, should SE research be driven by scientific curiosity and/or local needs, or should we prioritize harmonized data collection to advance research?

Another vibrant debate among network partners is about their understanding of, and approach to, the essence of SE research. For some, SE is a disciplinary approach to studying interactions between social systems and ecosystems. To others, SE is a transdisciplinary research process, which emphasizes interaction with stakeholders, co-production of knowledge, and direct policy relevancy.

This session has two objectives. First, to introduce Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platforms and to showcase their research. The session will include researchers from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds, experiences, and geographies, including USA, Taiwan, UK, Poland, Israel, and Slovakia, to offer a wide range of perspectives.  

Second, the demonstration of LTSER work will highlight the various manifestations of SE research across the network (how different platforms interpret and conduct SE research). The session will also offer reflections on efforts to harmonize research activities to allow for global-scale comparative SE research and observation, while recognizing the importance of local, bottom-up research programming.

Daniel Orenstein: What is socio-ecological research? Efforts to harmonize theory and methods across an international socio-ecological research network

Teng-Chiu Lin: Top down and bottom up approaches of Taiwan Long Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER)

Merav Cohen: Testing socio-ecological resilience theory in Long Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platforms

Zita Izakovicova: Data collection for assessment of natural capital - case study of the Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) Platform of Trnava,

Slovakia Ľuboš Halada: Official statistics for socio-ecological research in Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platforms

Kinga Krauze: Entering a decade of nature-based solutions (NBS) for water security - what can Long Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platforms contribute to the approach?

You can check the full agenda of the event here. 

You can read more about the event on its official website.