COREvents #5 & BIBU Talks: Serious games for collaborative governance

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Getting serious with games! What role can games and gamification play in addressing local and global sustainability challenges? How have they been used? What are the opportunities and challenges from the point of view of young people especially?

To share knowledge and encourage discussion on these questions, Academy of Finland Strategic Research Council projects CORE, ALL-YOUTH, BIBU and PALO invite all interested to this open event. A keynote lecture on serious games by Assistant Professor Todd Schenk will be followed by three talks including comments on his points and presentation of topical approaches to gamification in Finland. 

Date:  2nd of December, 2019, 16:00-18:00

Place: Think Corner, Think Lounge, Yliopistonkatu 4, Helsinki

Programme

16:00 Welcome!

16:05 Todd Schenk: Serious games for collaborative governance in times of change and uncertainty

Dr. Todd Schenk is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs and affiliate with the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech, U.S. He has extensive research and consulting experience working on environmental policy and planning, and collaborative governance issues in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Todd has developed and facilitated a variety of role-play simulation exercises, and other serious games, to facilitate social learning, foster reflection, and support collaborative experimentation with stakeholders at all levels, from students in the classroom to senior government officials. See examples of Todd Schenk’s publications below. 

16:45 Discussion 

17:00 Jari Varsaluoma: Gamifying societal discussion service – Youth perspective (slides here)

PhD Jari Varsaluoma, researcher at Tampere University. Jari has over ten years of experience in user experience related research and evaluation studies in academia and with industrial partners. Currently Jari is working in ALL-YOUTH research project which explores the capacities of young people (aged between 16 and 25) and the obstacles that hamper their engagement with society. Jari’s research focus is on digital services and how they can support youth engagement in societal discussions, and what is the role of gamification in this context.

17:15 Mikko Meriläinen: Jam it! – Learning through co-creation of games (slides here)

Mr. Mikko Meriläinen (M.A.), researcher at Tampere University Game Research Lab. As part of the Growing Mind project’s research into innovative pedagogies, he is currently studying the use of game jams as an avenue of learning and collaboration.

17:30 Nina V. Nygren & Ville Kankainen: Science communication and engagement with the biodiversity offsetting game (slides here)

Dr. Sc.(Admin.) Nina V. Nygren, post doc researcher in environmental policy at the Faculty of Management and business, Tampere University. She has done research on biodiversity offsetting, and conservation conflicts and solutions. Currently she is leading the biodiversity offsetting game project and teaching.  Nygren is specialized in collaborative and multidisciplinary research and teaching.

Mr. Ville Kankainen (M.Sc.) is a researcher and a PhD student in the Tampere University Game Research Lab with a background in game design. In his dissertation Kankainen studies how the use of digital media affects the tabletop-gaming culture. His research interests are focused on hybrid play, post-digitality, tabletop game culture, game jams and game design research. Currently he works as a researcher in the Offsetting Game project.

17:45 Discussion

18:00 End of the event

No registration needed. Welcome!

Facebook event here.

Publications by Todd Schenk

Rumore, D., Schenk, T. & Susskind, L. 2016. Role-play simulations for climate change adaptation education and engagement. Nature Climate Change 6, 745–750.

Schenk, T. 2013. Boats and Bridges in the Sandbox: Using Role Play Simulation Exercises to Help Infrastructure Planners Prepare for the Risks and Uncertainties Associated with Climate Change. In: A. V. Gheorghe et al. (eds.), Infranomics, Topics in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality 24.

Schenk, T. 2018. Adapting Infrastructure to Climate Change Advancing Decision-Making Under Conditions of Uncertainty. Routledge.

Schenk, T. & Susskind, L. 2015. Using role-play simulations to encourage adaptation – Serious games as tools for action research. In van Buuren, A., Eshuis, J., van Vliet, M. Action Research for Climate Change Adaptation: Developing and Applying Knowledge for Governance. Routledge.

COREvents #3: Civic action and collaborative governance

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What leads young people to engage in collective initiatives in times of more or less severe crises? How do the motivations and forms of engagement of Millenials differ from those of previous  generations? What does the changing of the civil society mean for collaborative governance?

The third COREvent will explore civic action and collaborative governance in the context of environmental and other social movements. The keynote lecture will be given by Donatella Della Porta, professor and social movement expert from the Institute for Humanities and the Social Sciences and the Center on Social Movement Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. Welcome!  

Date: 24 May, 2019, 10:00-12:00

Place: University of Jyväskylä, Mattilanniemi 2, Jyväskylä, Agora building, hall Agora Alfa

Programme

10:00 Welcome! Tapio Litmanen, University of Jyväskylä

10:05 Donatella della Porta: Deconstructing generations in movements: evidences from anti-austerity protests in Europe (see introduction below)

Discussion

11:30 Maija Faehnle, Finnish Environment Institute SYKE and Tampere University: Civic action in the digital era – opportunities and challenges for collaborative governance

11:40 Discussion

12:00 End of the event

The event can also be followed online at: https://m3.jyu.fi/jyumv/ohjelmat/hum/yfi/prof-donatella-della-porta/live

No registration is needed. If you are on Facebook, you can pick the event to your Facebook calendar.

During the event you can post comments and questions for the lecturers in Twitter with hashtag #corestn.

Donatella della Porta’s lecture “Deconstructing generations in movements: evidences from anti-austerity protests in Europe” addresses the self-understanding of young activists in anti-austerity protests in European countries. Building on a theoretical framework that aims at bridging youth studies and social movement studies, it first introduces some main research questions such as: What leads a significant number of young people in times of more or less severe crisis to engage in collective initiatives, rather than to remain passive? What are the forms of social commitment that critical young people choose to use, in particular during periods of crisis? Which meanings are attached to these forms of social engagement? What kinds of resources are available to young people for social mobilization? And to what extent do they vary across different degrees of socioeconomic crisis, governmental constellation, and type of conflict, thereby shaping individual-level forms and levels of social participation? To what extent do differences in the impact of the crisis on national contexts, and related political transformations, result in differences in young people’s social engagement in terms of motivations and forms?

After presenting the theoretical model and the research design, the lecture summarizes some results across three main aspects: the meaning of generations in social movements, the self-definition of Millennials, as well as some characteristics of their mobilizations in terms of organizational structures, repertories of action, and collective framing. Using the concept of generations in a critical way, the lecture will deconstruct it by looking at the meaning given to generations by movement activists, to their self-perception in terms of generational identification, as well as their taste in terms of contentious frames and practices. Read more here.

Donatella Della Porta  is professor of political science, dean of the Department of Political and Social Sciences and director of the PhD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos).

Among the main topics of her research are social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, the police and protest policing. She has directed a major ERC project, Mobilizing for Democracy, on civil society participation in democratization processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Mattei Dogan Prize for distinguished achievements in the field of political sociology. She is Honorary Doctor of the universities of Lausanne, Bucharest and Goteborg.

She is the author or editor of 90 books, 135 journal articles and 135 contributions in edited volumes. Among her recent publications are: Legacies and Memories in Movements (Oxford University Press, 2018); Sessantotto. Passato e presente dell’anno ribelle (Fertrinelli, 2018); Contentious moves (Palgrave 2017), Global Diffusion of Protest (Amsterdam University Press, 2017), Late Neoliberalism and its Discontents (Palgrave, 2017); Movement Parties in Times of Austerity (Polity 2017), Where did the Revolution go? (Cambridge University Press, 2016); Social Movements in Times of Austerity (Polity 2015).

Donatella della Porta will be conferred as the University of Jyväskylä’s Honorary Doctor in the conferment of degrees ceremony on 25th of May 2019.

Maija Faehnle is a senior researcher at the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE. She is the communication manager of the CORE project and studies aspects of civil society, activism and collaboration especially in urban contexts.

Tapio Litmanen is professor on sociology at the University of Jyväskylä. He leads the work on civil society in the CORE project.

See COREvents #1 and #2 on video here.

Science & activism – The role of environmental movements in transformations to sustainability

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This is both an open invitation and a call for papers for a researcher and PhD seminar on Science & Activism, held at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu 29-30(31) January 2019.   

UPDATE: the presentations of the seminar are collected here

Aim of the event is to share ideas and discuss the role of activism, in its various forms, in transformation towards sustainability. Our perspective to activism is broad. Within the context of sustainability transition, we invite papers which approach the challenges and benefits of combining activism and science, the role of environmental movements, citizen engagement in policy processes and scientific research, co-production of knowledge, analyses of the driving forces behind resistance and conflicts (e.g. environmental justice issues) etc.   

Organizers: LYY Institute & CORE project & ALL-YOUTH project

Venue: University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Natura Building, Room N113

On the first seminar day we will hear participant presentations after a thematic plenary:  

A key note by Maija Faehnle (CORE -project): Solving complex problems togehter – activism as challenge and opportunity for collaborative governance.  

On the second day we will continue with the participant presentations but also enjoy plenaries given by our invited guest speakers from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona:

A keynote by Mariana Walter: A perspective on radical transformations to sustainability: resistances, movements and alternatives 

A keynote by Marta Conde: Counter-expertise and co-production of knowledge: interface between science and activism

We will finalize the seminar by round table discussions with World Café methodology organized by the ALL-YOUTH project. World Café methodology will be used to facilitate the discussion on youth participation in activism related to environmental conflicts.

We welcome presentations from various disciplines and multiple scales, from global analyses to local case studies. We invite you to one or both days by just taking part or by presenting your research related to the themes described above.   

You are also welcome to join the open lectures given by our guests from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a trip to Koli national park on Thursday (see the programme and titles of the lectures below).  

About practicalities:  

If interested in presenting, please submit your abstract (max. 250 words. Include a title, name and affiliation of the presenter) to LYY coordinator Outi Ratamäki (at outi.ratamaki(at)uef.fi) by 15 December 2018 the latest. Call for papers is open for all researchers and PhD students.    

Deadline for registering to the event is 15 January 2019. You should register here: https://elomake.uef.fi/lomakkeet/21213/lomake.html

Seminar is free of charge and open for all. 

On Tuesday evening we will have dinner at a local restaurant; everyone is welcome to join but should cover their own expenses. Travel costs of the shared ride to Koli will be covered. Preliminary programme for the Koli trip can be found in the registration form. About Koli: http://www.koli.fi/en 

Further information from: outi.ratamaki(at)uef.fi 

 

PROGRAMME 

Tue 29 January: 1st day of the seminar 

12.15-12.30 Welcoming words: prof. Rauno Sairinen, scientific leader of the LYY Institute 

12.30-13.30 A keynote: Solving complex problems together – activism as challenge and opportunity for collaborative governance: Maija Faehnle 

13.30-14.30 Seminar presentations (approximately 30 minutes each) 

14.30-14.45 Coffee break 

14.45-16.15 Seminar presentations  

16.15-16.30 General discussion 

Dinner  

Wed 30 January: 2nd seminar day  

10.15-10.30 Welcoming words: LYY co-ordinator Outi Ratamäki  

10.30-11.30 A key note: A perspective on radical transformations to sustainability: resistances, movements and alternatives: Mariana Walter  

11.30-12.30 A key note: Counter-expertise and co-production of knowledge: interface between science and activism: Marta Conde  

12.30-13.30 Lunch  

13.30-14.30 Presentations 

14.30-14.45 A coffee break 

14.45-16.45  World Café by ALL-YOUTH

16.45-17.00  Closing of the seminar

Additional programme:  

Thu 31 January: Open lectures on the Mining, environment and society -course: 

9.15-10.15 Mariana Walter: The Environmental Justice Atlas. A tool for activism and research. 

10.15-11.00 Marta Conde: Resistance to mining 

11.15-12.00 Lunch  

12.15- 18.30 A trip to Koli  

  

Invited guests’ biographies: 

PhD Maija Faehnle is senior researcher in the Programme for Sustainable Urbanisation at Finnish Environment Institute SYKE. She has worked at the interface between science and practice in the context of the changing civil society and collaboration for sustainability. Currently she coordinates communication and societal interaction of two research consortiums, one of which is the CORE project (SRC, Academy of Finland) that studies new collaborative governance practices for solving contested societal challenges such as energy transition. Her research has addressed urban civic activism as resource for cities in the digital age, integration of ecological and experimental knowledge in planning, and multicultural aspects of collaborative practices. In her PhD on Regional Science, she developed methods for design and evaluation of collaborative urban planning. Her research interests include collaborative governance, collaborative economy, action research, self-organisation and citizen energy. 

PhD Mariana Walter is a postdoctoral researcher at ICTA-UAB.  Walter’s research addresses extractive conflicts (mainly in Latin America), social metabolism, expert-lay knowledge interplay, social transformations and scales. She holds a Masters diploma in Environmental Studies (focusing on Ecological Economics) and has participated in research projects in Argentina (UNGS) and Europe (ALARM, CEECEC, ENGOV). Currently she is the scientific coordinator of the ACKnowl-EJ Project (Academic-Activist Co-Produced Knowledge for Environmental Justice. www.acknowlej.org) a 3 year international project funded by the ISSC. She has published her work in books and journals such as Global Environmental Change, Ecological Economics, Geoforum, Land Use Policy and Local Environment. 

ICTA-UAB: The Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) is a multidisciplinary centre that promotes academic research and postgraduate education in the environmental sciences. It aims to improve our understanding of global environmental change, and the nature and causes of environmental problems. In addition, it studies policies, strategies and technologies to foster a transition to a sustainable economy.  

ICTA hosts the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJ Atlas). The main leaders involved are Leah Temper, Joan Martinez Alier and Daniela Del Bene. The EJ Atlas documents and catalogues social conflict around environmental issues. The EJ Atlas collects these stories of communities struggling for environmental justice from around the world. It is supported by the ENVJUST project (ERC Advanced Grant 2016-2021), and the ACKnowl-EJ (Academic-Activist Co-Production of Knowledge for Environmental Justice, 2015-2018) funded by the Transformations to Sustainability Programme. 

A post-graduate Research Associate Marta Conde at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Associate Researcher in UAB. Conde holds a degree in Agricultural Engineering (UPC), masters in Environmental Science (Birkbeck College, London) and Ecological Economics (UAB). Her research looks at social reactions to the expansion of extractive industries at the commodity frontiers. The ‘extractive conflicts’ endured by developing countries are caused by the ‘cost shifting successes’ of material and energy consumption in developed economies. Using political ecology, ecological economics and political economy she analyses the drivers, strategies and discourses of resistance movements to mining. She is particularly interested in uranium mining conflicts and the socio-economic and health implications of nuclear and uranium expansion. 

Her latest research explores one of the strategies used by resistance movements in socio-environmental conflicts; the alliance between science and activism.  Drawing from political ecology and STS, Conde proposes that scientific and local knowledge co-production can empower and give visibility to local groups and activists.  Conde links her research with the fields of degrowth and environmental justice, showing how these groups are contesting successfully the imperative of endless economic growth. 

UAB: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, https://www.uab.cat/web/about-the-uab-1345666325480.html    

Organizers:  

The Institute for Natural Resources, Environment and Society (LYY) is a network organization based at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF).  Our network combines social and cultural research expertise for application in the analysis of the environment and natural resource uses. 

The project Collaborative remedies for fragmented societies – facilitating the collaborative turn in environmental decision-making (CORE) is funded by Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. CORE studies and develops collaborative action in environmental planning and decision-making.  

  

  

  

 

COREvents #2: Using collaborative knowledge practices in environmental planning and decision-making

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How is trust in expertise generated and lost in environmental policy? How to overcome challenges in democratising environmental expertise? Why is joint fact-finding useful in complex planning and decision-making processes and how to apply it in practice?

The second COREvent explores the potential of inclusive knowledge practices to bridge the gap between science and environmental policy making and create a shared knowledge base that different actors consider relevant and reliable.

Three leading scholars, Prof. Susan Owens (Cambridge University, UK), Prof. Esther Turnhout (Wageningen University, the Netherlands) and Prof. Masahiro Matsuura (Meiji University, Japan) will share their insights on the ways to improve science-policy interface and broaden knowledge communities in environmental planning and policy-making context. You are warmly welcome to join the event!

Date: 4 September, 2018, 15:00-18:00

Place: Auditorium Laulujoutsen, 1st floor, The Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Mechelininkatu 34a, Helsinki

Programme

Prof. Susan Owens: Trust in Expertise for Environmental Policy

Prof. Esther Turnhout: Democratising environmental expertise: challenges and opportunities at the science-policy-society interface

Prof Masahiro Matsuura: Linking contested expert knowledge to collaborative governance: joint fact-finding

Discussion

Susan Owens is Emeritus Professor of Environment and Policy and Fellow Emerita of Newnham College, University of Cambridge. She has researched and published widely in the field of environmental governance. Her current projects are concerned with relations between science and politics, and with the role of argument, evidence, ideas and advice in policy formation and change. She has also worked extensively on interpretations of sustainable development in theory and practice, and has theorised connections between environmental planning conflicts (especially those concerned with contentious technologies and infrastructures) and developments in wider domains of public policy.

Esther Turnhout is Full Professor at the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group of Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her research program The Politics of Environmental Knowledge includes research into the different roles experts play at the science policy interface, the political implications of policy relevant knowledge, and the participation of citizens in environmental knowledge making, also known as citizen science. Current research focuses on the UN Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), wildlife management and invasive species, auditing practices in forest management and the production of transparency and traceability in global value chains.

Masahiro Matsuura is Professor at the Graduate School of Governance Studies, Meiji University, Japan. He is also the head of Democracy Design Lab, a non-profit organization for promoting democratic engagements in Japan, and one of the co-founders of Consensus Building in Asia, a network of practitioners and scholars interested in collaborative processes in Asia. His research interests include the theory and practice of consensus building, negotiation and deliberative democracy in the urban and environmental planning sectors.

No registration is needed. If you are on Facebook, you can pick the event to your Facebook calendar.

You can see the video of the event online here.

During the event you can post comments and questions for the lecturers in Twitter with hashtag #corestn. 

COREvents is a series of open discussions, lectures and workshops organised by CORE project, funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. CORE explores the potential of collaborative approaches to environmental planning and decision-making, with the mission to facilitate a collaborative turn in Finland. Welcome to discuss with us in Twitter with hashtags #corestn, #yhteishallinta and #strateginentutkimus!

COREvents #1 provided international insights in why collaboration and conflict resolution is needed and what makes it work. See the video here!

Course on environmental conflict mediation gathers international students

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The course on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution brings together students from 19 different countries at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu Campus, from 20 to 24 August 2018.

The course, entitled Environmental collaboration and conflict resolution: The Crossroads of Forestry, Ecosystem Services and Wildlife, is intended for PhD students in forestry and environmental sciences. The course seeks to further understanding of environmental conflicts and the possibilities of mitigating conflicts through collaborative management, mediation and participatory interventions. The course is both academic and practice-driven.

The course is organized in collaboration with the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Copenhagen, the University of Agder in Norway, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and ALL-YOUTH and CORE research projects, and is funded by the Nordic Forestry, Veterinary and Agricultural University Network (NOVA) and the Strategic Research Council (SRC).

Read more on University of Eastern Finland website!