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New IHDP Projects and Initiatives – From Planning to Practice
of global environmental change and as such, will determine
the state-of-the-art of human dimensions research. In addition,
the theme of the 7th Open Meeting of the International
Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, “The
Social Challenges of Global Change,” responds to important
changes in the perspective of the scientific community on
the current challenges that we are currently facing and outlines
the new research agenda for the next decade in terms
of theoretical frameworks and methodologies as well as the
science-practice nexus and the policy relevance of social
science on global environmental change in general. IHDP
scientific projects are at the forefront of human dimensions
research and the new IHDP projects are also expected to set
both long-term research agendas as well provide overarching
guidance in their respective research areas.
The Earth System Governance Project provides just
such overarching guidance, as a common set of questions
for the study of earth system governance in Earth System
Governance: People, Places and the Planet. Science and Implementation
Plan of the Earth System Governance Project
(Biermann et al., forthcoming). This Science Plan was written
over the course of a year by an international committee
of scientists with interest and experience in the field of
governance. This scientific planning committee integrated
a variety of disciplines in the social sciences, including political
science, sociology, policy studies, geography, law and
economics, as well as expertise on all levels of governance,
from local governance to global agreements.
The scientific planning committee had three intense
drafting meetings and organised a variety of roundtables
and conference side-events so as to solicit the views from the
research community and from practitioners. Among other
things, the 2007 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Dimensions
of Global Environmental Change was held under
the theme of ‘Earth System Governance: Theories and Strategies
for Sustainability’ and served as the launch of ESG’s planning
process. 1 Draft versions of the Science Plan have been
reviewed, in parts or in whole, by a large number of experts,
from both academia and political practice. Since early January
2009, an advance unedited version of the science plan has
been online, available to the entire scientific community. 2
Crosscutting the Community
Governance was a crosscutting theme in IHDP’s
scientific portfolio long before this theme evolved and co-
1 See http://www.2007amsterdamconference.org
2 For more information and download: http://www.earthsystemgovernance.org
The Earth System Governance Project understands
the concept of earth system governance
as “the interrelated and increasingly integrated
system of formal and informal rules, rule-making
systems, and actor-networks at all levels of
human society (from local to global) that are
set up to steer societies towards preventing,
mitigating, and adapting to global and lo-cal
environmental change and, in particular, earth
system transformation, within the normative
context of sustainable development.” The notion
of governance refers here to forms of steering
that are less hierarchical than traditional
governmental policy-making (even though
most modern governance arrangements will
also in-clude some degree of hierarchy), rather
decentralized, open to self-organization, and
inclusive of non-state actors that range from
industry and non-governmental organizations
to scientists, indigenous communities, city
governments and interna-tional organizations.
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alesced with the idea of earth system governance to become
an IHDP core project. As a project, governance will be maintained
and strengthened in its crosscutting character. The
Earth System Governance Project explicitly attempts in its
research activities to cut across the entire Earth System Science
Partnership community. Most IHDP projects, as well
as the ESSP joint projects, address questions of governance
and institutions. ESG itself seeks to strengthen the knowledge
base on governance issues in the other global change research
programmes. Illustrative of this is an ESG presentation at the
IHDP Open Meeting 2009, which will highlight how the analytical
problems examined by ESG could be relevant for governance
in the coastal zone at a panel convened by the Land-
Ocean Interaction in the Coastal Zones Project (LOICZ).
Practically, ESG has addressed the need to collaborate
with and to cut across other global change programmes
through extensive consultations with these projects during
the drafting of its science plan. For example, the flagship activities
outlined in the science plan have been developed and
will be implemented in close consultation and collaboration
with the ESSP joint projects, the Global Water System Project
(GWSP), the Global Environmental Change and Food
Systems Project (GECAFS) and the Global Carbon Project
(GCP). The flagship activities illustrate the existing coop-
48 IHDP Update 1.2009