Circle 7: Act, React & Reflect: Meta-perspectives on climate change knowledge
Upcoming events:
- 2025 Winter Session: Workshop on “Expertise and politics in climate change knowledge”
27-28 February 2025, Department of Linguistics, Philosophy and Theory of science, Gothenburg University, Sweden.
Call for papers | Program
- 2025 Summer Session: “Theorizing Sustainability Transitions and Transformations”
21–28 July 2025, NSU Summer Session, Jyväskylä, Finland
Call for papers (pdf link) and below (scroll down)
Past events:
- Invited PhD summer school/circle: “Act, React & Reflect: Meta-perspectives on climate change knowledge”
29 July – 5 August 2024, Løgumkloster Højskole, Denmark
Programme
Call for Papers: Theorizing sustainability transitions and transformations
NSU Summer session 2025, July 21 – 28, Jyväskylä, Finland
Facing the increasingly severe crisis of rapid anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss, the need for a major societal transition to more sustainable forms of living is beyond doubt. Across different research fields, policy makers and social movements, there is a broad shared understanding that such a societal transition or transformation involves restructuring the complex socio-technical or social-ecological systems. This involves significant change to our economies, institutions, culture, technology, physical energy and resource flows, and relation to the biosphere. Furthermore, such a far-reaching transition will also have to address social justice.
This need for a societal transition or transformation invites a host of different theoretical issues that are addressed in various scholarly communities. While researchers in the sustainability transitions field are concerned with the mechanics of evolutionary change socio-technical systems, (Andersen and Geels 2023; Geels 2011; Kanger and Schot 2019; Köhler et al. 2019), other conversations focus on concepts such as socio-ecological systems (Young et al. 2006) or sustainability transformations (Child and Breyer 2017; Hölscher, Wittmayer, and Loorbach 2018). Still others focus on macroeconomic issues, such as limits to growth, steady-state or degrowth economies, challenging the established capitalistic system (Kallis et al. 2018; Kerschner 2010), including the problems of decoupling economic growth from environmental impact and the resilience of capitalism (Warlenius 2023). Neo-Gramscian political economists focus on the analysis of power in transitions (Newell, Paterson, and Craig 2021) and the literature on Just Transitions centers on issues of environmental justice (McCauley and Heffron 2018). This abundance and variety of not always linked conversations and approaches to the same common challenge raises multiple conceptual questions. Beyond academia, societal actors including policymakers, activists, private companies and civil society all embody different theories of change as they strive to enact transitions or transformations. Although these theoretical issues are discussed at length in their respective fields, there are few cross-cutting discussions about common ground, contrasts, contradictions, or complementarities.
We invite papers addressing all manner of theoretical issues related to sustainability transitions (broadly understood), with the hope to provide a forum where such perspectives can meet and interact in critical but friendly dialogue. Potential topics could be critical discussion, comparison or development of concepts or theoretical frameworks in these literatures, for example through bringing different concepts, theoretical traditions or literatures into productive dialogue. We furthermore invite empirical contributions addressing the mobilization and negotiation of transition theories by various actors, for example in governance processes or by social movements. We encourage work in progress papers and interdisciplinary work challenging established literatures and theories.
The session is a part of the Nordic Summer University (NSU) Summer Session 2025. NSU is a Nordic independent academic institution, which organizes winter and summer symposia that draw international participants across disciplines in the Nordic and Baltic regions. Focusing on crossing sectoral and disciplinary boundaries, NSU provides opportunities for participants to be challenged out of their intellectual comfort zones in a non-hierarchical space that encourages slow thinking and reflective dialogue.
Within NSU, this session is arranged by the three-year NSU study circle Act, React, and Reflect: Meta-perspectives on Climate Change Knowledge. The study circle focuses on the challenges to established forms of knowledge production posed by the need for a response to climate change. Aside from the 2025 summer session’s focus on societal transitions, we have also discussed or plan to discuss expertise, academic activism, planning and markets, denialism and obstruction, and boundary crossing. While the main topic of this session will be theorizing transitions, we also welcome submissions relating to these topics or any other that deal with challenges to established knowledge production due to climate change.
Format
The summer session will be structured around in-depth discussions of participants’ submitted papers. This NSU summer session will take place in Jyväskylä, Finland during a full week (July 21 – 28). An NSU Summer session is host to multiple parallel study circles, and participants are welcome to join other study circle’s session, and a range of cultural and social activities. Our summer session will also include a joint workshop co-organized with the NSU study circle Exnovation and Degrowth, whose summer session “Building community in the midst of collapse: organizing towards degrowth futures” takes a more practice- and social movement-oriented approach to the issue of degrowth and transformation.
Travels, accommodation and children
Accommodation (full board) is organized by NSU and included in the conference participation fee. Information about accommodation and pricing will be available at the NSU website. For participants with children, NSU organizes a “childrens’ circle” with daytime activities for children between 3-13.
For PhD students/students/independent/early career researchers without institutional funding, a travel grant may be offered to partially cover travel costs and participation fee. NSU furthermore offers a scholarship and grant program where recipients can participate at a reduced fee. See the NSU website for details. Please indicate interest in travel grant/scholarship in your abstract submission.
ECTS credits for PhD students
Upon request, PhD students who attend the summer session and present a paper will be granted, through NSU, a letter recommending 3 ECTS credits for active participations.
Submission and important dates
Deadline for abstracts: 11 April 2025
Proposals should be written in English and include title, author name(s), email, affiliation, a short bio (max 200 words) and your abstract (max 350 words). Submit your proposal by email to the coordinators: jakob.lundgren@hh.se and anders.hylmo@hh.se
Notifications of acceptance: Accepted proposals will be notified at the latest by 18 April.
Registration deadline: 15 May. Registration is done through the NSU website.
Full paper deadline: Participants should prepare to submit a full paper by July 4th. Papers may be work in progress at any stage of completion.
Coordinators
Jakob Lundgren (PhD), School of Business, Innovation and sustainability, Halmstad University, Sweden. Email jakob.lundgren@hh.se
Anders Hylmö (PhD),School of Business, Innovation and sustainability, Halmstad University, Sweden. Email anders.hylmo@hh.se
References
- Andersen, Allan Dahl, and Frank W. Geels. 2023. “Multi-System Dynamics and the Speed of Net-Zero Transitions: Identifying Causal Processes Related to Technologies, Actors, and Institutions.” Energy Research & Social Science 102:103178. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2023.103178.
- Child, Michael, and Christian Breyer. 2017. “Transition and Transformation: A Review of the Concept of Change in the Progress towards Future Sustainable Energy Systems.” Energy Policy 107:11–26. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.04.022.
- Geels, Frank W. 2011. “The Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainability Transitions: Responses to Seven Criticisms.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 1(1):24–40. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2011.02.002.
- Hölscher, Katharina, Julia M. Wittmayer, and Derk Loorbach. 2018. “Transition versus Transformation: What’s the Difference?” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 27:1–3. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2017.10.007.
- Kallis, Giorgos, Vasilis Kostakis, Steffen Lange, Barbara Muraca, Susan Paulson, and Matthias Schmelzer. 2018. “Research On Degrowth.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 43(Volume 43, 2018):291–316. doi: 10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025941.
- Kanger, Laur, and Johan Schot. 2019. “Deep Transitions: Theorizing the Long-Term Patterns of Socio-Technical Change.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 32:7–21. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2018.07.006.
- Kerschner, Christian. 2010. “Economic De-Growth vs. Steady-State Economy.” Journal of Cleaner Production 18(6):544–51. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.10.019.
- Köhler, Jonathan, Frank W. Geels, Florian Kern, Jochen Markard, Elsie Onsongo, Anna Wieczorek, Floortje Alkemade, Flor Avelino, Anna Bergek, Frank Boons, Lea Fünfschilling, David Hess, Georg Holtz, Sampsa Hyysalo, Kirsten Jenkins, Paula Kivimaa, Mari Martiskainen, Andrew McMeekin, Marie Susan Mühlemeier, Bjorn Nykvist, Bonno Pel, Rob Raven, Harald Rohracher, Björn Sandén, Johan Schot, Benjamin Sovacool, Bruno Turnheim, Dan Welch, and Peter Wells. 2019. “An Agenda for Sustainability Transitions Research: State of the Art and Future Directions.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 31:1–32. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2019.01.004.
- McCauley, Darren, and Raphael Heffron. 2018. “Just Transition: Integrating Climate, Energy and Environmental Justice.” Energy Policy 119:1–7. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2018.04.014.
- Newell, Peter, Matthew Paterson, and Martin Craig. 2021. “The Politics of Green Transformations: An Introduction to the Special Section.” New Political Economy 26(6):903–6. doi: 10.1080/13563467.2020.1810215.
- Warlenius, Rikard Hjorth. 2023. “The Limits to Degrowth: Economic and Climatic Consequences of Pessimist Assumptions on Decoupling.” Ecological Economics 213:107937. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107937.
- Young, Oran R., Frans Berkhout, Gilberto C. Gallopin, Marco A. Janssen, Elinor Ostrom, and Sander van der Leeuw. 2006. “The Globalization of Socio-Ecological Systems: An Agenda for Scientific Research.” Global Environmental Change 16(3):304–16. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.03.004.
About Circle 7: Act, React & Reflect: Meta-perspectives on climate change knowledge
This three-year study circle is a continuation of the successful 2024 invited circle and PhD summer school.
The aim of this circle is to explore the challenges, posed by the need to take on the multiple interlocking challenges caused by climate change, for our conventional ways of producing and thinking about knowledge. In processes ranging from the production of increasingly sophisticated climate data and modelling, through anticipatory models and governance of its societal effects, theorizing about possible and desirable transition pathways and policy measures, to mobilizations by activist as well as climate deniers, boundaries between researchers and stakeholders are being blurred and the role of science (natural and social) in society is being renegotiated.
The notion of a transition to a sustainable society raises questions about previously established roles of academic research and researchers in democratic societies. Scientific knowledge claims are not only motivating global societal transformation. Their implications have also increasingly become the subject of political debate, where an increasing number of scientists have taken on activist roles. These developments challenge an established understanding of science as non-partisan and value-free, as well conceptions of the relation between expertise, politics, and forms of governance.
This study circle aims to provide a space to reflect on this situation and the questions it raises and what it all might entail in a Nordic+Baltic and global context. We focus on the role of knowledge as it is used to ACT on climate change towards sustainable societal transitions in different context and by different actors, how REACTION is formed and organized, producing or harnessing knowledge to deny climate change or obstruct political change, and on REFLECTION on the role of knowledge production and knowledge agents in relation to climate change and sustainability transitions.
The overarching aim of the study circle is to establish and grow a Nordic-Baltic research network centered on meta-perspectives on climate knowledge. In the democratic, non-hierarchical and bottom-up spirit of the study circle, we hope to facilitate an organically growing network, linking young researchers and other actors in the region.
The format is centered on in-depth discussion of papers submitted primarily by junior scholars. In addition, we invite senior scholars and keynote speakers, as well as practitioners and stakeholders, and collaborating partners in joint workshops and outreach activities.
Six themes run through the three-year circle. We devote each session to one of these themes, while we also invite contributions focusing on other subthemes.
- Experts and expertise. The theme involves the role of experts as knowledge brokers, the role of scientists and expertise in policy processes and in the public sphere, and contested climate expertise. We further invite rethinking the role of expertise and academic knowledge in the post-truth era. For example, it is well known that a common tactic of climate deniers is to undermine public trust in climate expertise (Oreskes & Conway, 2012). At the same time, overconfidence in the ability of experts to reduce complex political questions to technical puzzles can lead to real problems of legitimacy and confidence in public policy (Wynne, 2003). Balancing between the extremes of repressive technocracy and “anything goes” post-truth, questions about the role of experts in the climate crisis connect our ideas of what knowledge and society is and should be (Durant, 2011).
- Planning, markets, and economics. The challenges invoked by the need for increasingly ambitious and radical societal transformation to meet the Paris agreement include reconsidering the role of economic growth and neoliberal assumptions (Mirowski, 2014). As increasingly highlighted both by more ambitious policies to address grand societal challenges (Kuhlmann & Rip, 2018; Schot & Steinmueller, 2018) and the degrowth literature (Warlenius 2023), and underlined by the geopolitical demise of neoliberalism, free markets and economic growth are no longer taken-for-granted primary societal goals. We invite both theoretical and empirical reflection on the role of planning and competition in the economy, the planning and governance of transition processes, and the production and use of academic economics knowledge.
- Academic engagement and activism. This theme encompasses various topics related to researchers’ use of climate science communication and its reception by various audiences, academic researchers’ modes of societal engagement (Perez Vico, 2018), ranging from policy experts and think-tank collaboration to academic activism as a mode of engagement, research communication as activism (Graminius, 2023), and the role and use of research-based knowledge of climate and transitions in social movements, labor unions and civil society (Frickel, 2004; Frickel et al., 2015; Hess, 2022).
- Climate denial and obstruction. A range of actors and movements are outright contesting climate knowledge and expertise, whether through outright denial of climate change, or through obstruction and delay of climate transitions (Oreskes & Conway, 2012). We invite reflection on theoretical and empirical approaches on epistemic engagement and contestation employed in cases of denialism, for example in social media discourse, mobilization against renewables, organized think tank campaigns, and political mobilization against transition policies.
- Theorizing sustainability transitions. We welcome contributions that address and theorize socio-technical transition processes. Topics may include critical engagement with the sustainability transitions literature (Köhler et al., 2019; Markard et al., 2012), theoretical contributions engaging with the role of data and knowledge, culture and ideology, or future visions and imaginaries in transition processes. We invite critical engagement with dominant theoretical perspectives (Geels, 2011), as well as introduction of novel theoretical and conceptual contributions to transition theory.
- Boundaries in knowledge production. Climate and sustainability sciences are inherently interdisciplinary fields. An increasing policy focus on grand societal challenges and “mode II” science-society interaction creates both opportunities and challenges related to construction, negotiation and contestation of epistemic boundaries (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1994; Nowotny et al. 2011). We encourage reflection on the significance of boundaries and boundary work (Lamont & Molnár, 2002) and inter- and transdisciplinary challenges in climate- and transition-related knowledge production, through issues relating to the evaluation and impact of inter- and transdisciplinary research (Lamont, 2012), to reflections on the nature of inter- and transdisciplinary climate knowledge.
ECTS credits for PhD students. Through NSU, participants in our summer and winter sessions will be granted ECTS credits for active participation (with preparation, presentation and discussion of papers). More detailed information will be provided in each sessions’ CfP.
