“Environment, Knowledge and Politics” - December 11, 2008, 11.00–12.00

THE STOCKHOLM SEMINARS:FRONTIERS IN SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE AND POLICY

We have the great pleasure to invite you to the seminar: “Environment, Knowledge and Politics” Prof. Susan Owens
King Carl XVI Gustaf Professor in Environmental Studies,

Stockholm Resilience Centre Thursday, December 11, 2008, 11.00–12.00Linné Hall, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lilla Frescativägen 4, Stockholm

Download the seminar announcement as a pdf-file at:http://albaeco.com/htm/pdf/owens1211-08.pdf

Please, post or circulate the announcement among your colleagues or put it on the note board. The seminars are open for all interested and free of charge. No registration needed. Very welcome!

ABSTRACT:What we know about natural environments, and about human interactions with them, has changed a great deal over the past four decades. So too have the ways in which knowledge is produced. Environmental policy, institutions and politics have also changed beyond recognition, and now have global reach. This seminar will reflect on these changes and their implications. It will then take a critical look at some of the prevailing conventional wisdoms in environmental research - for example, the drive towards interdisciplinarity and the insistence on ‘user engagement’. Finally, it will ask whether what we know affects what we do, and will offer three possible models of the relationship between environmental research and policy.

ABOUT PROF OWENS:Susan Owens is Professor of Environment and Policy and Fellow of Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, UK. This year she holds the King Carl XVI Gustaf Professor in Environmental Studies, shared between the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Owens has researched and published widely on environmental issues and policy processes, and on interpretations of sustainable development in theory and practice, particularly in the context of land use and environmental planning. She has been a member of the standing Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, UK, since 1998. She was awarded an OBE for services to sustainable development in 1998 and in 2000 received the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Back’ Award for contributions to research and policy formulation in this field.

ABOUT THE STOCKHOLM SEMINARS: FRONTIERS IN SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE AND POLICY The Stockholm Seminars cover a broad range of perspectives on sustainability issues and are focused on the need for a sound scientific basis for sustainable development policy. The Stockholm Seminars is arranged by seven interdisciplinary institutes to communicate scientific results on sustainable development. The seminars are given at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and are visited by a large audience, including scientists, students, media and policy makers in the public and private sector. The lectures are free of charge and open for all interested.

For moreinformation: contact Albaeco (08 - 674 74 00) or e-mail: info@albaeco.com, or www.albaeco.com/sthsem

ARRANGED BY:
- The Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- The Stockholm Resilience Centre
- The Stockholm Environment Institute, SEI
- The International Geosphere
-Biosphere Programme, IGBP, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- The Stockholm International Water Institute, SIWI
- The Swedish Biodiversity Centre, CBM, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Uppsala University
- The International Foundation for Science, IFS