Structuring Research

We have extensive experience elaborating research programs and research projects as well as new educational modalities, such as post-graduate courses. We have the capacity to offer said services or get involved in said initiatives, helping the identification of the factors to be considered, expertise to be required and validating the robustness and usefulness of preliminary problem structurings. Our strongest research domains are as follows.

Energetics

Not all joules are equal—the desirability of energy transformations is determined by their final cause(s) (why we do them), efficient cause (how do we do them), formal cause (what type of technology we use) and material cause (what type of primary energy source we use). Simplistic analysis of the price of any given kilowatt-hour of electricity, whether sourced from solar photovoltaic or from coal power, has very little to do with the desirability of a renewables transition. Energetics is a field of study that enjoyed prominence until the late 1970s, ultimately dwindling out victim to Cold War era politics. Notwithstanding, energetics is perhaps more relevant in the modern day than ever before.

Agriculture

Food systems have evolved rapidly over recent decades. Agriculture has moved from being a driver of rural development to being a supplier of cheap food commodities for an urban population. The agricultural sector immediately post-WWII would be hardly recognizable aside that of the modern day. Farmers themselves, tasked with the impossible job of keeping up with trends of increasing agricultural externalization and an emotionless innovation treadmill, are being eliminated at an alarming rate. Where do we go from here? How can food security be guaranteed in an increasingly unstable world?

Science for Governance

The sound scientific method used to send rockets to the Moon is not the same as the sound scientific method required for dealing with issues of social-ecological sustainability. In the former, the system at play is purely mechanical. In the latter, the system is living and reflexive, perceiving the external world through emotions. Robust science for governance in the sustainability domain requires the taking of a post-normal science approach—the type of science relevant for situations where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent” (S. Funtowicz and J. Ravetz). Easier said than done.

Metabolic Patterning of Social-Ecological Systems

“Metabolism” is a term that applies to all living systems. You or your neighbor’s pet are both living systems (“organisms”) and, therefore, each have a metabolic profile. When coming to sustainability science, a remarkably insightful realization is that social-ecological systems are also organisms in the truest sense of the term (see the Meaning of LIPHE4). Over the course of many years we have developed and carefully revised an entire tool-kit based on this realization, useful to generate rich information spaces capable of supporting meaningful science and policy insights.

Resource Nexus

Our energy sectors are under transition. Our food systems are under transition. Water is becoming a key sustainability issue. The loss of biodiversity associated with changes in land uses and the resulting destruction of habitat is a major concern. Though there’s a time and place to analyze each of the primary sectors in isolation, robust sustainability science must necessarily acknowledge the unavoidable entanglement of resources—food, energy, water, ecological integrity and otherwise. “Christmas list governance”, as in the Sustainability Development Goals, may be an acceptable place to start, but it is wildly insufficient. Queue the resource nexus.