How can a city undergoing deep transformation become not only greener or more modern, but also more just? This question has guided our recent work in the STENEO project 🔗 (Social Dimension of New Energy Technologies in the Ostrava Metropolitan Area), where we have been developing a conceptual framework for analysing just urban transformation in... Continue Reading →
On 18 February 2026, authors contributing to the upcoming TransformERS edited volume gathered in Lisbon for an intensive one-day workshop. The meeting brought together researchers and practitioners from across Europe and beyond who focus on different dimensions of sustainability transformations. The aim of the workshop was twofold: to provide constructive peer feedback on draft chapters... Continue Reading →
At the end of January 2026, Julia Leventon, Tereza Prášilová, Vendula Kubušková and Vojtěch Gerlich from the Department of Social Processes and Sustainability at CzechGlobe travelled to Brussels for the final conference of the Horizon Europe project SSH CENTRE – Social Sciences and Humanities for Climate, Energy and Transport Research Excellence. Over two intensive days,... Continue Reading →
I recently had the opportunity to travel to Univerzita Komenského (Comenius University) in Bratislava, Slovakia to take part in the 33rd conference for the European Early Childhood Education and Research Association (EECERA). For some followers of this blog, this might seem like a slight deviation from the issues and fields we normally explore in our Human Dimensions Department. However,... Continue Reading →
Thanks to the wonderful work of and support from the Transformers COST Action (🔗), I recently had the opportunity to participate in two consecutive events, both focused on transformative change for sustainability. Both allowed me to broaden my experience, my views, the community with which I interact and work, and finally to broaden the way I... Continue Reading →
V uplynulých třech letech se několik členů našich sesterských oddělení podílelo na hodnotících zprávách Mezivládní vědecko-politické platformy pro biodiverzitu a ekosystémové služby (IPBES), zejména na hodnotící zprávě Tematické hodnocení vzájemných vazeb mezi biologickou rozmanitostí, vodou, potravinami a zdravím (hodnotící zpráva zaměřená na nexus) a hodnotící zprávě Tematické hodnocení základních příčin ztráty biologické rozmanitosti, determinantů transformativní... Continue Reading →
The Beskydy Workshop 2024, held from September 24–26 at Hotel Horal in Velké Karlovice, focused on the theme of "Nature-Based Governance: Coevolutionary and Transformative Perspectives on the Biodiversity and Climate Crises." This scientific gathering brought together researchers and practitioners to explore nature-based governance (NBG) from a coevolutionary and co-creative perspective by responding to people's and... Continue Reading →
Oddělení sociálně-ekologické analýzy (SE Lab) dokončilo v nedávné době práci na projektu Just Scapes, který se zaměřil na spravedlivou transformaci venkovských oblastí v Evropě. Šlo o projekt v mezinárodní spolupráci, přičemž česká případová studie, kterou zpracovávalo právě oddělení SE Lab, probíhala na Slovácku a Valašsku. Zkoumali jsme vztah mezi ochotou místních obyvatel přijímat změny v... Continue Reading →
Ve čtvrtek 23. května 2024 se v Praze uskutečnil výzkumný workshop mapující mechanismy transformativní změny směrem k udržitelnosti v sektorech energetiky, potravin a zemědělství v Česku. Organizovalo jej Oddělení sociálně-ekologické analýzy (SE Lab) Ústavu výzkumu globální změny AV ČR (ÚVGZ). Šlo už o druhé setkání výzkumnic a výzkumníků našeho oddělení se stakeholdery, kteří se v... Continue Reading →
SELINA (Science for Evidence-based and sustainabLe decIsions about NAtural capital) is a Horizon Europe project with the mission to provide robust practical information and recommendations on ecosystem services to stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. SELINA will develop guidance for evidence-based decision-making that supports the protection, restoration, and sustainable use of ecosystems. Through... Continue Reading →
In April 2024, a two-day workshop on Mobility Communities was held in Porto, Portugal, as part of series of workshops organised under the Knowledge Brokerage Programme within the project SSH Centre. CzechGlobe, a partner of the project consortium, was represented by Tereza Prášilová, who attended the workshop as an active observer. First day of the... Continue Reading →
A workshop on the sustainability aspect of the solidarity economy was held at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) on April 22, 2024, in Budapest. The Culture Club @ ELTE TáTK organized the workshop to increase awareness and understanding of sustainability among college, master's, and PhD students. CzechGlobe's Elif Tugba Simsek... Continue Reading →
FoSTA-Health is a project where Lenka Suchá and Aneta Seidlová from CzechGlobe, along with partners from the University of Leeds, contribute to the research components focused on the on-ground food systems transformation in Tanzania and Malawi. They are specifically interested in how the food systems transformations are framed by the small-scale farmers who are most... Continue Reading →
The PLUS Change project aims to develop strategies and decision-making processes for land use that effectively address challenges related to climate change, biodiversity, and human well-being. The project involves interventions across diverse political, economic, societal, material, and cultural contexts, involving actors at multiple decision-making levels including the individual, land management, planning, and policy levels. This... Continue Reading →
The FoSTA Health team conducted the first round of cross-country stakeholder consultation workshops for the project across Zambia, Tanzania, South Africa, and Malawi between October 11 and 12, 2023. The workshops aimed to glean diverse perspectives on food system transformations, focusing on One Health outcomes. These engagements are the first step toward exploring how human,... Continue Reading →
Elba is the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest one in Italy. Its terrain is very diverse, with the eastern and western areas being largely mountainous and most of the large cities concentrated in the central flat; some 31 309 permanent residents inhabit the seven communes of the island. One... Continue Reading →
The PLUS Change project—Planning Land Use Strategies: Meeting biodiversity, climate and social objectives in a changing world—a collaborative Horizon Europe project involving representatives from 14 countries and 23 institutions, commenced with a highly successful kick-off meeting held in Prague from June 12th to 14th. Read the press release on the project's linkedin. You can follow... Continue Reading →
In the Horizon Europe-funded project BIONEXT, European changemakers are exploring new visions for nature-centered Europe for 2050. In the first out of three BIONEXT workshops, in May 2023 in Greece, changemakers from different backgrounds created visions of what a nature-centred Europe can look like in the year 2050. Who are the changemakers participating in BIONEXT... Continue Reading →
In April-May 2023 FoSTA-Health researchers participated in scoping activities in Zambia and Malawi. Our CzechGlobe team member, Lenka Suchá, joined our other colleagues from the consortium for one week in Malawi. The primary aim of the scoping visit was to gather background information about one-health and food systems transformations in order to refine our research... Continue Reading →
We are very excited to be coordinating a new project called PLUS Change: Planning Land Use Strategies for meeting climate, biodiversity and social goals in a Changing world. The project is funded by Horizon Europe (grant agreement 101081464) and will launch on 1st June and run for 4 years. It involves 23 partners from across... Continue Reading →
Beyond economic growth in sustainability debates. We quite often witness heated disputes on the direction of sustainability transitions. These debates are slowly making its way also to popular spaces and the media, often distorted and biased. Within this discourse, there are two recognisable ideological streams: one representing the proponents of ...
Po roce se do Západní provincie v Zambii vydaly v rámci projektu Coop4Wellbeing výzkumnice z CzechGlobe, Lenka Suchá, Zuzana Harmáčková a Aneta Seidlová, spolu s kolegy z Katedry rozvojových a environmentálních studií Univerzity Palackého a z organizace Člověk v tísni. Tým se věnoval prohlubování výzkumu klíčových témat, která jsou důležitá jak pro život místních lidí... Continue Reading →
What are the possible solutions that would help remove barriers to landscape change and transition towards sustainable land management from the perspective of local stakeholders? In February 2023, we held the last round of Just Scapes participatory workshops. For the past two years, we have been doing research focused on possible landscape and land management... Continue Reading →
Odborníci z CzechGlobe se připojují k mezinárodnímu konsorciu zkoumajícímu, jaké cesty by nám mohly pomoci transformovat řetězce mezi těžbou, výrobou, spotřebou a obchodem tak, abychom dosáhli pozitivních výsledků pro klima a biologickou rozmanitost. Nový čtyřletý projekt TRANSPATH je financován z programu Evropské unie pro výzkum a inovace Horizon Europe. Pomůže identifikovat intervence a body působení... Continue Reading →
Experts from CzechGlobe are joining an international consortium to study what pathways could help us transform the chains between extraction, production, consumption and trade, to achieve positive outcomes for climate and biodiversity. The new four-year project, TRANSPATH, is funded by the European Union’s research and innovation programme Horizon Europe. It will identify leverage points and... Continue Reading →
Just before Christmas, Julia Leventon and Lenka Sucha were excited to be in Pretoria, South Africa for the launch of the FoSTA Health project (Food Systems Transformation in Southern Africa for One Health). The project is exploring food systems transformations in Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and South Africa, and works closely with academic and practice partners from... Continue Reading →
October 21, 2022: Earth System Governance Project 2022 conference in Toronto. Photo by Dave Chan. ESG 2022 took place from 20-24 October at Toronto University, CA. The central theme linking all the presented contributions was "Governing Accelerated Transitions". ESG 2022 hosted over a hundred sections, covering a wide range of topics connected to acceleration and... Continue Reading →
Last summer I started my research on conservation-development conflicts in the process of returning large carnivores in Europe (namely wolves in the Czech Republic) to the wild. A year later I returned to the field and spent two weeks among farmers in the cultural landscape of the Beskid Mountains area. Preliminary results show social injustices... Continue Reading →
Written by the Global Food and Environment Institute A new €6.5 million project, funded by Horizon Europe and Innovate UK, will see colleagues from the Global Food and Environment Institute (GFEI) collaborate with partners across Africa and Europe (one of them us, CzechGlobe) over the next three and half years. The Food Systems Transformation in... Continue Reading →
What is a social-ecological system and how do we study it? Why is it good to think about linkages between humans and nature in relation to development projects? Projects of Czech Development Cooperation (CDC) take place in a complex social-ecological system (SES), which represents the relations between society and nature. In this sense society is...
Co je to sociálně-ekologický systém a jak se dá zkoumat? K čemu je dobré se zamýšlet nad vazbami mezi člověkem a přírodou v souvislosti s rozvojovými projekty? Projekty české rozvojové spolupráce (ZRS ČR) se odehrávají v komplexním sociálně-ekologickém systému, který představuje vzájemné propojení společnosti a přírody. V tomto pojetí je společnost neoddělitelnou součástí přírody, a proto je nutné... Continue Reading →
The one-day weekend workshop taught participants new creative writing and creative visual methods. It focused on works and ideas connected to nature, the landscape, and the environment. This workshop took place as part of the Just Scapes project, which deals with the just transformation of society and the landscape in the European countryside. We collaborated... Continue Reading →
Urban agriculture is widely supported across developing countries as it has proven to be a vital livelihood strategy among the urban poor, resulting in various benefits, including enhanced food security and socioeconomic empowerment. Many researchers and policymakers stress that legal land tenure is one of the key assets that help to enhance the potential of... Continue Reading →
Fokusní skupina s farmářkami ve vesnici Mabumbu v Západní provincii Zambie V rámci projektu Coop4Wellbeing se výzkumnice z našeho oddělení, Lenka Suchá a Zuzana Harmáčková, spolu s kolegy z Katedry rozvojových a environmentálních studií Univerzity Palackého a z organizace Člověk v tísni vydaly na cestu do Zambie, kde shromažďovaly výzkumná data a mapovaly vazby mezi společenským... Continue Reading →
What changes do we see in local landscape and society, and what would we like to happen in the future? How do we ensure that the effects of these changes are just for everyone? The European countryside is undergoing great social and natural changes, including climate change. However, the impacts of these changes affect various... Continue Reading →
Our project Coop4Wellbeing has entered its second phase, which is dedicated to field research in Zambia. Together with colleagues from People in Need and the Department of Development and Environmental Studies at Palacky University, we took off to Zambia in February 2022. During our month-long fieldwork we mapped the links and dynamics between nature and... Continue Reading →
V rámci projektu Coop4Wellbeing jsme v únoru 2022 vyrazili spolu s kolegy a kolegyněmi z organizace Člověk v tísni a Katedry rozvojových a environmentálních studií Univerzity Palackého na terénní sběr dat do Zambie. Během měsíčního pobytu v oblasti kolem města Mongu, regionálního centra Západní provincie, jsme mapovali vazby mezi společností a přírodou. Zaměřili jsme se také na to, jak... Continue Reading →
Naše případová studie, která v rámci projektu Just Scapes v současnosti probíhá na Slovácku a Valašsku, se zaměřuje na průzkum vazeb mezi ochotou lidí přijmout a realizovat transformativní změny v krajině kolem nich a tím, jak vnímají environmentální spravedlnost...
Would you like to read our highlights of 2021? We have prepared a little newsletter to show you what we have done over the last year. We wish you a wonderful winter holiday, and look forward to seeing you again in 2022. highlights2021_finalDownload
V rámci projektu Coop4Wellbeing usilujeme o vyšší provázanost vědy a aplikovaného výzkumu s českou rozvojovou spoluprací. Naším hlavním cílem je převedení výzkumných poznatků týkajících se vazeb a interakce mezi společností a přírodou do praxe “rozvojovky”. Proto jsme první fázi Coop4Wellbeing postavili na kvalitativních rozhovorech s klíčovými aktéry české rozvojovky. Během analýzy jsme se soustředili především na původ... Continue Reading →
The Coop4Wellbeeing project aims at strengthening linkages among science, applied research, and Czech development cooperation. Our main goal is to spark the process of knowledge transfer from the collaborative research on social-ecological linkages to the practice. The first phase of the project was based on qualitative interviews with key actors of Czech development cooperation. We... Continue Reading →
POLLEN je globální síť pro politickou ekologii (výzkumnou oblast řešící, jakým způsobem se politické a společenské uspořádání podepisuje na správě přírodního prostředí a zdrojů). Cílem sítě POLLEN je podporovat spolupráci mezi lidmi, kteří se věnují otázkám politické ekologie, zprostředkovávat výměnu zkušeností a propagovat význam politické ekologie po celém světě mezi akademiky i dalšími skupinami. Činnost... Continue Reading →
Our current case study within the Just Scapes project (see https://sustainablecz.org/2021/05/03/launching-the-just-scapes-project/) in Slovácko and Valašsko regions focuses on exploring the relationship between people’s willingness to accept and implement transformative changes in landscapes around them and their perception of environmental justice of these changes. In particular, we are interested in landscape changes related to climate change adaptation and tree cover in agricultural landscapes (alleys,... Continue Reading →
Produkce a spotřeba potravin v dnešní době propojuje i velmi vzdálená místa planety – žijeme v tzv. globálním potravinovém systému. Tento systém však nefunguje bezchybně – je mimo jiné náročný na suroviny, ohrožený místními konflikty i klimatickou krizí a často výrazně nespravedlivý vůči místním zemědělcům na celé planetě i celým státům. V posledních letech se navíc začíná snižovat... Continue Reading →
When it comes to large carnivores in Europe, what are the main issues described by farmers, foresters and herd keepers, and what are the just measures to give both parties (animals and humans) their needed living space? The return of large carnivores to Europe as a means of rewilding nature is gradually becoming one of the burning issues for a variety of... Continue Reading →
Cities and large urban areas are major drivers of global environmental change that has negative impacts on human well-being. Consequently, urban areas are one of the most vulnerable to these impacts since they centre a large share of the population and economy. At the same time, urban areas are an important player in shaping policy... Continue Reading →
How can international development cooperation projects be strengthened through research of social-ecological linkages? And where does participatory research stand in such a relation? These and many other questions will be addressed by the interdisciplinary research project Coop4Wellbeing, which is being carried out by the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CzechGlobe),... Continue Reading →
Jak může výzkum vazeb mezi přírodou a společností přispět k posilování projektů zahraniční rozvojové spolupráce? A jakou roli v tomto propojení hraje participativní výzkum? Odpovědi na tyto (a další) otázky bude hledat interdisciplinární výzkumný projekt podpořený Technologickou agenturou ČR, na kterém se podílí Oddělení společenského rozměru globální změny Ústavu výzkumu globální změny AV ČR (CzechGlobe), Katedra rozvojových... Continue Reading →
How to make our response to climate change more just and sustainable? This central question will be addressed by a new project, Just-Scapes, which we contribute to in collaboration with University of East Anglia, Lille Catholic University, ESPOL – European School of Political and Social Sciences and INRAE – French National Research Institute for Agriculture,... Continue Reading →
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