{"id":260,"date":"2018-10-05T11:36:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T15:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/istconference\/?page_id=260"},"modified":"2019-03-18T09:13:54","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T13:13:54","slug":"call-for-papers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/istconference\/call-for-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Submissions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The 10th International Sustainability Transitions Conference (IST) will be hosted by the School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA) at 杏吧原创 University from June 23rd to the 26th, 2019. This 10th Anniversary event will mark the first time the IST conference has been held outside Europe. It will provide an occasion to highlight the achievements of international transition studies, to introduce researchers who are not yet familiar with transitions literatures to this vibrant community, and to explore complementarities with related research perspectives and approaches.<\/p>\n

Main Conference theme: Accelerating sustainability transitions\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The pace of change has emerged as a central concern for sustainability transitions research. Although the historical record suggests major system transformations are often spread over multiple decades, some researchers have argued that transitions toward more sustainable societal arrangements can (and must) move considerably faster. This sense of urgency has been reinforced by international studies (such as the recent IPCC 1.5 \u030a C Report), which emphasise serious consequences should societies fail to make rapid progress away from existing environmentally-destructive patterns of production and consumption.<\/p>\n

Today there is substantial evidence that transformative changes in societal systems such as electricity and food are gathering pace as new technologies, business models and social practices begin to reconfigure existing systems of social provisioning. Yet speeding up transitions to sustainability faces serious challenges. In a number of sectors there has been increased resistance from actors opposed to more radical and rapid adjustments. Moreover, in some respects the general political situation has become more difficult with the rise of ‘populist’ and authoritarian movements. More generally, the knowledge base about how to speed up purposive transitions remains seriously underdeveloped.<\/p>\n

The theme of IST 2019 \u2013 Accelerating sustainability transitions \u2013 seeks to address this context by encouraging researchers and practitioners to examine obstacles to transitions processes and strategies to speed up the transformation of systems of production and consumption. It points to the importance of visions \u2013 of improved mobility systems, agricultural and food systems, buildings, cities and rural communities \u2013 to coordinate efforts and mobilize change. It raises the challenge of mapping out concrete pathways that can link the present with desirable futures. And it emphasizes navigation of the inevitable conflicts that accompany serious efforts at societal change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A number of promising avenues have already been identified by transition scholarship, including: the role of politics and policy in opening pathways for change and managing the decline of established arrangements; the place of experimentation to network change agents and test alternatives; the potential for action-oriented transitions research to broaden and scale up innovation trajectories; the importance of addressing equity and justice concerns to build societal support; the significance of national, regional, and local contexts (distinct political-economic circumstances, for instance) in defining the pace and nature of unfolding transitions; and the development of research approaches (for example, the convergence of formal modelling and socio-technical pathway analysis) to track acceleration possibilities.<\/p>\n

In addition to this central theme of Accelerating sustainability transitions, the Organizing Committee for IST 2019 would like to encourage the transitions research community to reflect on two issues that are particularly important in the Canadian context (but which have more general significance) and which have so far received relatively little attention from transition scholars:<\/p>\n