Exploring pathways for regenerative transformation
Key Subject Area Toward a Regenerative Society
How can we design transformative processes that drive the regeneration of societies and ecosystems? Regenerative transformative processes have the potential to drive deep systemic change and address some of today’s greatest challenges. Our research team investigates the concept of regenerative transformation from an interdisciplinary perspective. We are developing empirical and practical knowledge to guide the design of transformative pathways towards a regenerative future.
©KSA Toward a Regenerative Society
Our Goal
Our team aims to further develop the conceptual and theoretical foundations of regeneration and establish it as a central element of transformations. In addition, we are generating new empirical knowledge on regenerative processes and developing pathways towards regenerative transformation. In combining conceptual and empirical insights, we are generating knowledge to support the regenerative transformation of societies.
The Challenge
The world is facing multiple crises like climate change, biodiversity loss, war, and political polarization, which are interconnected and self-reinforcing. These crises lead to the degradation of ecosystems and to the degeneration of societies and human health. To tackle these global challenges, we need to understand and foster transformative processes that generate similarly interconnected and self-reinforcing positive changes – so that regenerative dynamics can unfold in ways that benefit both people and ecosystems.
Our Approach
As a response to current global challenges the concept of regeneration has emerged in the discourses of various academic disciplines. To further advance this concept and its theoretical foundation, we are combining evidence from current academic discourses with empirical knowledge from our own interdisciplinary, place-based research. Based on socio-ecological research, biology, conservation science, and social and sustainable entrepreneurship, we are generating knowledge that can be used to design transformative pathways towards regenerative futures in different contexts – from local to global.
Researchers from the Schools of Management & Technology and Sustainability are active in the key subject area (KSA) Toward a Regenerative Society. They work closely with their colleagues from the Innovation Community Social Innovation, the DFG Research Group “A social-ecological systems approach to inform ecosystem restoration in rural Africa”, and the ERC project “Mainstreaming Social-Ecological Sufficiency: Closing the sustainable consumption gap between societal demand and ecological limits”.
The key subject area is part of the Embracing Transformation program, which is funded by the Strategic Development of Potential initiative of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) and the Volkswagen Foundation.
