SGO9209A ¨C Scaling Transformations to Sustainability in Theory and Practice

Course content

This PhD course focuses on how sustainability solutions can be scaled in an equitable and inclusive manner to contribute to the measurable results needed to meet global commitments, such as the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement, and the Global Biodiversity Framework. When it comes to scaling, there is currently significant attention to "top-down" versus "bottom-up" approaches, and to amplifying impacts along a local to global spatial continuum. Still, there is little consensus and limited evidence on?how?transformations can be scaled in an equitable and inclusive manner, and there is insufficient action. A diversity of concepts, frameworks, research methods, and approaches to scaling will be examined in the PhD course, including flat ontologies, leverage points, and "social tipping points." Some of the implicit assumptions behind these concepts will be critically assessed, and alternative approaches will be considered.

Key questions addressed in the course relate to scaling transformations not as an abstract idea but something that everyone, including the students in this class, can engage in - it is something we do. These questions include what is the role of individual and collective agency and social movements in scaling change? Or imagination, art, and storytelling? Or?you, as a researcher and someone who cares about equity and sustainability? Throughout this four-day course, we will include exercises and activities that help participants integrate theory and practice. Each PhD student is invited to make a short presentation (in smaller groups) on how their own research explicitly or implicitly approaches the question of scale or scaling. We will draw on methods based on experiential and transformative learning, and thus this will be an in-person PhD course.

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Course Convenors

Karen O¡¯Brien and Manjana Milkoreit, University of Oslo

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Instructors

Manjana Milkoreit?is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. Her research integrates scholarship on global environmental governance and cognitive theory to study actor motivations, beliefs and agency, institutional design and effectiveness related to climate change. Her current projects focus on the role of future thinking (imagination) in sustainability transformations and the study of social tipping points. Dr. Milkoreit received her Ph.D. in Global Governance from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. Before joining UiO, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University.

Michele-Lee Moore?is the Deputy Science Director and the Director of Transdisciplinary Education at the Stockholm Resilience Center, University of Stockholm. Michele-Lee¡¯s research focus is on social innovations and transformations, with a focus on water governance. She seeks to build and mobilize knowledge about social innovations - ones that allow us to transform and develop towards positive and just futures that support social-ecological-cultural resilience. Her focus includes topics such as transformative agency, social-ecological systems resilience, and social and governance innovations that are better able to grapple with complex system dynamics. Her work on transformative agency and capacity explores the role of networks, reflexivity, emergence, and most recently, imagination in supporting transformation and governance innovation. Moore also advances scientific understandings of how to design, facilitate, and co-create processes and learning spaces that support transformation.

Karen O¡¯Brien?is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her research emphasizes the social and human dimensions of climate change through integrative approaches that link the practical, political, and personal spheres of transformation. Her work has explored the relationship between adaptation and transformation, and she is particularly interested in the role of beliefs, values, worldviews, and paradigms in systems change and social change. Her recent research focuses on how quantum social science can inform both understandings and actions for equitable social change and explores fractal approaches to scaling transformations to sustainability. She is currently a co-chair of the IPBES transformative change assessment.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

• Familiarity with diverse social science concepts of and approaches to scaling change, their strengths and weaknesses;
• Understanding the nature of transformative change and social tipping dynamics;
• Knowledge of barriers to sustainability transformations;
• Knowledge of theories related to agency, including the role of imagination and storytelling.

Skills and Competences

• Application of frameworks for scaling to different dimensions and types of sustainability transformations;
• Critical assessment and comparison of different approaches to scaling change;
• Ability to use various methods to develop one¡¯s own and others¡¯ imaginative abilities related to scaling transformative change;
• Application of theories of scaling change to one¡¯s own research and life.

Admission to the course

PhD students at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography register for the course in?StudentWeb.

Interested participants outside the Department of Sociology and Human Geography shall fill out this?application form.?

The deadline for registration is?8th August 2023.?After the deadline shall all applicants receive a note about if?the application is approved.

Examination

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The full four-day event makes up the PhD course with the equivalent of 5 ECTS. For approval you need to be an active participant throughout the course, be present on all days, read the curriculum, prepare and participate in a student panel in collaboration with a group of students, and write a 5000-word paper that critically evaluates your own research agenda in dialogue with the themes and theories discussed during the course. To pass the course, the paper must be sent to the two course conveners by 17:00h on November 30, 2023, and subsequently approved by them. A 2-ECT option is available for students who do not wish to write a paper (see SGO9209B ¨C Scaling Transformations to Sustainability in Theory and Practice (discontinued)).

Examination support material

All exam support materials are allowed during this exam. Generating all or part of the exam answer using AI tools such as Chat GPT or similar is not allowed.

Grading scale

Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about?the grading system.

More about examinations at UiO

• Use of sources and citations
• Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
• Withdrawal from an exam
• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Explanation of grades and appeals
• Resitting an exam
• Cheating/attempted cheating

You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.