IST 2023 Call for abstracts is now open!
14th IST Conference 2023
Responsibility and reflexivity in transitions
Utrecht, The Netherlands
August 30th – September 1st, 2023
August 29th – Early-career researcher day
We are excited to announce the 14th annual International Sustainability Transitions conference organized by the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. This year’s conference theme is ‘Responsibility and Reflexivity in Transitions‘. As the first in-person conference in 3 years, this gathering constitutes a special and important moment of reflection for our community.
The multi-faceted challenges facing the global community necessitate a deep reflection on just sustainability transitions. Coming off the heels of the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, energy security and resource scarcity have become extraordinarily intertwined, affecting all aspects of life and all facets of sustainability transitions – from food accessibility to droughts to transportation – and ranging from the world’s wealthiest countries to those hardest hit. However, these challenges may lead to competing priorities. While we see record deployment of solar and wind energy technologies, countries are also reactivating coal and a debate has been reinvigorated about the role of nuclear power in the energy mix. Community-supported agriculture and agroecology continue to grow whilst vast quantities of industrially produced grain are stimulated to supply basic global food needs. In this time of upheaval, we may indeed have an opportunity to make changes that were thus far locked out. Do we now go back to ‘normal’? Do we make room for change? If so, how? How do we encourage and safeguard the time and space to critically reflect on deeply held assumptions about how our societies could or should function while being confronted with a sense of urgency?
The IST is the central event of the international transitions research community and is organized annually by different partners on behalf of the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN). STRN comprises more than 1500 international researchers from various disciplines and produces more than 500 publications in specialist journals every year. The research network and the annual conference address the question of how the transition to sustainability can succeed through co-evolutionary changes and innovations in socio-technical systems.
The Call for Abstracts is open until Friday, March 10th 2023. Submissions for the IST 2023 can be made through the conference submission system.
In case of questions, please do not hesitate to contact the conference organisers.