Headline: IASS-KLASICA Workshop on Collective Behaviour Change for Sustainable Futures

The IASS is hosting a Knowledge, Learning, and Societal Change International Research Alliance (www.KLASICA.org) workshop on February 7-9, 2016 on collective behaviour change toward just and equitable sustainable futures. It is intended to develop a framework and roadmap for understanding of the basis of transformations to sustainable futures and our capacity to engage constructively on this path with civil society, the private sector, and policy. The workshop will provide an opportunity for brainstorming and identifying a portfolio of analytical, epistemological, and methodological approaches that improve our understanding and ability to facilitate transformative societal change toward sustainable futures. It will draw from a wide range of intellectual resources of the 39 external participants, as well as several IASS staff and fellows, who bring expertise in natural sciences, psychology, sociology, education, philosophy, theology, and history to the workshop.

The output from the workshop will be a joint paper and report, which set out a research framework on collective behaviour change toward sustainable futures and provides the basis for symposia on case studies planned for November 2016 and January 2018. The symposia will focus on analysing empirical evidence for success or failures of collective behaviour change in the context of sustainability. They will examine lessons learned from projects with varying degrees of perceived success or failure, including projects that did not narrowly or intentionally focus on behaviour, but which nonetheless may yield valuable information on transformation through collective behaviour change. It will also be an opportunity to evaluate the different approaches to collective behaviour change for sustainability for their effectiveness, inclusivity, and scalability.

Contact:

• Ilan Chabay, Senior Advisor for Global Sustainability Research at the IASS and Chair of KLASICA: ilan [dot] chabay [at] iass-potsdam [dot] de (ilan[dot]chabay[at]iass-potsdam[dot]de)
• Stefan Schäfer, director of the IASS Emerging Technologies and Social Transformations (ETST) research program: stefan [dot] schaefer [at] iass-potsdam [dot] de