Ambio 50 years conference

Date: 2021-09-09

Time: 13:00 - 17:00

Venue: Online event

Throughout 2021 Ambio will celebrate 50 years of publishing environmental research and prepare for engaging with the environmental challenges ahead of us.

Please join us in taking the first step in a continued engagement with urgent environmental challenges! What will the big research topics for the 2020s be? And how can science – and scientific journals – become more directly accessible and useable for policy and practice?

The conference will be online and mix short keynote presentations by distinguished researchers with panel discussions and more interactive breakout group discussions, as per the detailed program below.

Programme

13:00
Welcome.
Assoc. Prof. Bo Söderström, Ambio.

13:10
50 years of being relevant – the emergence of systems based social-environmental research and how Ambio evolved with it.
Prof. Sverker Sörlin, History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.

13:30
Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere – the development and current status of a research field.
Prof. Carl Folke, the Beijer Institute/the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Stockholm Resilience Centre.

13:45
Critical challenges and transformation for agro-ecosystems and landscapes.
Prof. Jennie Barron, Faculty chair in Agricultural Water Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. 

14:00
Break

14:05
Biodiversity enables the human environment.
Prof. Jeffrey A. McNeely, former Director of the Biodiversity Program and Chief Scientist/IUCN.

14:20
Climate-biosphere-human interactions and the state of the Earth System: critical differences between ocean and land.
Prof. Katherine Richardson, Biological Oceanography, University of Copenhagen, pre-recorded lecture.

14:35
What science do we need to tackle the current and future environmental challenges?
Panel discussion: Sverker Sörlin; Jennie Barron; Carl Folke; Jeffery McNeely; Karen O’Brien.

15:00
Group discussions, registered participants only.

  • The next big social-environmental issues (falling within the Ambio scope).
  • Intra- to transdisciplinary needs to comprehensively speak to systemic social-environmental issues.
  • Introducing a new article category dealing exclusively with ‘solutions’ – merits and requirements and quality assessment.
  • Standards for high quality multi-/transdisciplinary research.
  • Plural perspectives and a broad knowledge base – supporting and promoting international research and comparative studies.

15:30
From Problems to Solutions: Engaging People in Transformations to Sustainability.
Prof. Karen O’Brien, Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo.

15:45
How to make Ambio research relevant to policy and practice?
Panel discussion including opening statements: Jeffrey McNeely, IUCN; Mariana Brandao and Jacco Flipsen, Springer; Maria Schultz, SIDA; Andrew Revkin, The Earth Institute.

16:15
Group discussions, registered participants only.

  • How can Ambio support capacity building and improve global relevance and uptake?
  • Which online venues and channels would be the best conduits for making scientific knowledge more accessible and useable?
  • How do we promote science in the era of fake news?
  • What role could Ambio have in providing or supporting demand-driven expert advice (targeted syntheses etc.)?
  • What activities and additional material (blogs, summaries, behind the scenes). could make Ambio a more immediate source for knowledge and decision support across sectors and actor communities?

16:50-17:00
Concluding words
Erik Andersson and Bo Söderström, Ambio; Mariana Brandao, Springer; Sverker Sörlin, KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

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Contact

Peter Brandén
Program Coordinator
program@kva.se