Selected proposals under the NORFACE and Belmont Forum transnational research programme on 'Transformations to Sustainability'

9 May 2018. Climate change, environmental degradation and resource pressures have created unprecedented situations for societies worldwide. Consequently, there is growing attention to the need for fundamental transformations in the way societies interact with each other and with the natural environment as the basis of sustainability. 

It is for this reason that NORFACE and the Belmont Forum launched last year a joint transnational research programme on 'Transformations to Sustainability'. Transformations to Sustainability has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730211.

“Transformations to Sustainability” (acronym: T2S) encourages both inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that enable researchers to address the interconnections and interdependencies between natural and human systems, as well as between science and society. The European Commission is providing top-up funding via an ERA-NET Cofund grant to this joint research programme.

The T2S programme (2017-2022) has two major objectives:

1. To develop understanding of and promote research on transformations to sustainability which are of significant social, economic and policy concern throughout the world and of great relevance to both academics and stakeholders;
2. To build capacity, overcome fragmentation and have a lasting impact on both society and the research landscape by cultivating durable research collaboration across multiple borders, disciplinary boundaries, and with practitioners and societal partners. This includes facilitating the development of new research collaborations with parts of the world which are not often involved in large-scale international research efforts, notably low- and middle-income countries.

NORFACE and the Belmont Forum launched the T2S research programme in January 2017. After a joint Call with a two-stage assessment procedure of 154 eligible Outline Proposals and 36 eligible Full Proposals, 12 project were selected for funding. These projects will start their work in 2018. In the projects, researchers from a wide variety of disciplines are working together across the globe, from Brazil to France and from Sweden to India.

Projects

1. AGENTS: Amazonian Governance to Enable Transformations to Sustainability
2. CON-VIVA: Towards Convivial Conservation: Governing Human-Wildlife Interactions in the Anthropocene
3. GoST: Governance of Sociotechnical Transformations
4. H2O — T2S: H2O — T2S in Urban Fringe Areas
5. IPACST: The Role of Intellectual Property to Accelerate Sustainability Transitions
6. Misty: Migration, Transformation and Sustainability
7. SecTenSusPeace: SECURING TENURE, SUSTAINABLE PEACE? The challenges of localizing land-registration in conflict-affected Burundi and eastern DR Congo
8. ST-ASGM: Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: A Multi-Actor and Trans-Regional Perspective
9. T2SGS: Transformations to Groundwater Sustainability: joint learnings from human-groundwater interactions
10. TAPESTRY: Transformation as Praxis: Exploring Socially Just and Transdisciplinary Pathways to Sustainability in Marginal Environments
11. TRUEPATH: TRansforming UnsustainablE PATHways in agricultural frontiers: articulating microfinance plus with local institutional change for sustainability in Nicaragua
12. Waterproofing Data: Engaging stakeholders in sustainable flood risk governance for urban resilience

About Norface

• Research Beyond Borders
• Brochure Presenting NORFACE
• Assessing the impact of NORFACE I
• Delivering the European Research Area in the Social Sciences and Preparing for Horizon 2020
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