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Project

Sabbatical Constanza Parra: Sustainability, transdiciplinarity and social innovation in socio-ecological systems

The overall goal of this sabbatical is to improve my understanding of the socio-territorial processes and mechanisms underpinning the nexus between sustainable socio-ecological development, social innovation and adaptation to climate change. Within this exploration, I will give special attention to the analysis of how the ambitions of gender equality and women’s empowerment play out in this nexus. To achieve this goal, this sabbatical comprises four interrelated components. First, to carry out research on the nexus between sustainable socio-ecological development, social innovation, gender, and climate change, including literature review, theory building, methodological development, and data gathering and analysis. Second, to visit and exchange ideas with scholars, research groups and other institutions working on different aspects of this nexus, allowing me to gain a fresh academic perspective and inspiration as a step towards the development of academically relevant publications and timely project proposals. During this sabbatical, I will visit research institutes at Moulay Ismail University in Meknes (MIU, Morocco), Vietnam National University Hanoi (VNU, Vietnam) and Universidad of Barcelona (UB, Spain). Together with these partners, I will visit and research the regions of Hoa Binh in Vietnam and Souss-Massa in Morocco; I will also be embedded in the Research Group Creativity, Innovation and Urban Transformation (CRIT, Universidad de Barcelona) to explore the subject of social innovations in the face of combined eco-social crises, inter- and transdisciplinarity and education for sustainable development. Third, to discuss and cross-fertilize new ideas with my own research group at the KU Leuven. Finally, during this sabbatical I will produce new publications and presentations discussing transformative sustainability issues from the perspectives of participatory action research, inter- and transdisiciplinarity, decoloniality, gender and the role of higher education institutions.

Date:1 Oct 2022 →  30 Sep 2023
Keywords:Governance of socio-ecological systems, sustainable development, social innovation, climate change adaptation, action research
Disciplines:Urban and regional geography, Human geography not elsewhere classified