ISSC-CIPSH Joint Scientific Symposium 2010

Changing Nature – Changing Sciences?
The Challenges of Global Environmental Change Research for the Social Sciences and Humanities

13-14 December 2010 Nagoya, Japan

Human behavior, values and responses to knowledge and impacts of climate and other forms of global environmental change will largely define the world’s future. The social sciences and the humanities can and must serve as a cornerstone for shaping such responses in a way that is fair and meaningful for people from all corners of the planet.

The aim of this symposium is to assist in the mobilization of a broader and stronger social and human sciences response to the growing demands of environmental change. By mobilization, we mean both the need to bring to the debate tools and perspectives of scholars from the humanities and the social sciences, even if they have not previously worked on sustainability and environmental issues, as well as the need to raise awareness of the fundamental importance of integrating those areas of research and knowledge in order to address environmental change. The meeting seeks to engage scholars in the process of identifying and framing future social sciences and humanities challenges and priorities in the field of global environmental change or global sustainability research. It will give special attention to the views and needs of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and focus on the possible positive feedback and synergies for the sciences to reframe the debate on climate change towards constructing fair as well as sustainable futures. At the international level, there is now growing recognition of the need for new approaches in global environmental change research and of the fact that significant advances depend on a new level of inclusion and prominence for the social sciences and humanities in the production of knowledge about global environmental change, both independently and in collaboration with the physical, biological and environmental sciences. Such a new approach would entail a deeper integration of the social sciences, the humanities, and the other sciences. A range of opportunities is emerging that enable our disciplines and Councils to take a more active and leadership role in developing such an approach.

Excellent social and human science is essential for effective and progressive action by scientists, businesses, publics, consumers and policy makers in the face of multiple stressors and inter-related environmental changes at local, national, regional and international levels. The social sciences and humanities provide theory, concepts, tools, narratives, and models by which to understand how global environmental processes variously impact and are impacted by human behavior; how they are mediated by complex, overlapping economic, socio-cultural, technological and political institutions; how public policies are decided and implemented at various levels of government; howthese have consequences for human development and basic needs for security for all; what the role of values, norms, and culture are in these process; and what key ethical challenges they raise. Such analyses explore what kind of theoretical legitimacy underpins the different concepts involved in research on global environmental change and, last but not least, how our civilizations and cultures have reacted to similar phenomena in the course of their history. Finally, the social sciences and humanities enable a better understanding of the nature of the choices members of societies are facing as citizens, producers and consumers at multiple scales of decision-making, from the level of the narrowly local to that of nation-states, regions and globally.

The focus of the Nagoya symposium will be to further stimulate and advance debate about the social sciences and humanities contributions, challenges, and capacities to advance global environmental change research. The symposium will be jointly organized by the International Social Science Council （ISSC） and the Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies （CIPSH）， and should take into account the work being done by the International Council for Science, the Belmont Forum （i.e. the Council of Principals of the International Group of Funding Agencies for Global Change Research）， the European Science Foundation （ESF） and other bodies concerned by future challenges of and strategies for global sustainability research.

The symposium will draw together the work of ISSC programmes in this area i.e. IHDP, IRDR and CROP （programmes that have strong partnerships with scholars and institutions in the majority world） and will explore the substantive and methodological issues and epistemological assumptions of the notion of “global sustainability” that arise as efforts are made to meet the challenge of working across the sciences and the north-south divide in a more integrated way. It will also highlight current important social science and humanities knowledge gaps and priorities and how these best can be addressed. The symposium will examine issues of sustainability related to processes of globalization, inequality, migration, food security, economic growth and development, cultural diversity, human rights, and social justice. These will be viewed with regard to factors likely to shape the future: from the challenge of addressing the linked issues of eradicating poverty and managing climate change, to population and migration change, to new technologies, demographic change, societal preferences and attitudes, the policy and regulatory frameworks and forms of governance. The symposium will also address the issues of scale, including opportunities for intervention at both the micro and macro level. Finally, it will consider the ethical dimensions of global environmental change, as well as the interrelations between science, power and politics that can help us understand and overcome societal inaction despite the growing scientific evidence about global environmental change and consumption patterns that threaten to undermine human well-being, development goals, and the preservation of planetary life-supporting systems.