Societal Change and Innovations

For humanity to thrive further within planetary boundaries, enormous behavioral changes are needed at the level of individuals and society. Technological innovation is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition to enable transformative changes at societal scale. Sustainable transformation also critically depends on strategic and adaptive governance to steer processes of change and ensure a fair benefit and burden sharing. Designing and successfully implementing transformative governance can be considered a process of “societal innovation” and involves multiple ethical dilemmas, especially in contexts of high cultural and ecological diversity.  

Our research under this cross-cutting research area spans across multiple disciplines from the social sciences, often in close collaboration with natural scientists and engineers. It ranges from theoretical approaches in philosophy, sociology, and economics to very applied work by human geographers and agricultural economists in culturally very diverse world regions. This includes historical and scenario-based research on human-nature interactions, for example how individual and collective behavior interacts with the bio-physical environment in shaping both intended and unintended future outcomes. It also involves experimental and observational research to improve our understanding of human behavior and the direct and indirect impacts of technological change and policies on the food system.  

Transdisciplinary research approaches under this cross-cutting research area involve co-design processes, where both the research design and the development of solutions and policy recommendation are informed by interactions with stakeholders. In doing so, we seek to contribute to societal innovations that enable more sustainable production and consumption patterns in the global bioeconomy.