Interconnected place-based social–ecological research can inform global sustainability

• Published in: Current opinion in environmental sustainability Vol. 29; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: Balvanera, Patricia, Calderón-Contreras, Rafael, Castro, Antonio J, Felipe-Lucia, María R, Geijzendorffer, Ilse R, Jacobs, Sander, Martín-López, Berta, Arbieu, Ugo, Speranza, Chinwe Ifejika, Locatelli, Bruno, Harguindeguy, Natalia Pérez, Mercado, Ilse Ruiz, Spierenburg, Marja J, Vallet, Améline, Lynes, Laura, Gillson, Lindsey
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-12-2017; Elsevier
• Subjects: Environment and Society; Environmental Sciences
• ISSN: 1877-3435; 1877-3443
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2017.09.005

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•Long-term networks of place-based research can inform global sustainability.•Place-based research fosters co-construction of local sustainability solutions.•Transference and scaling-up of place-based insights faces several challenges.•New institutional frameworks, settings and communities foster place-based research.
Global sustainability initiatives are gaining momentum and impact, and place-based research can provide complementary insights to strengthen them. Here, we explore the current and potential role of place-based research into informing global sustainability initiatives by assessing the strengths, challenges, and opportunities. We show that place-based research allows for a better understanding of global social–ecological dynamics, and that transformations towards sustainability are often triggered at the local scale through the co-construction of local solutions. We discuss that the very nature of place-based research can hinder its transferability because its global integration faces temporal, spatial and governance scale mismatches, and we identify some of the key challenges of scaling-up its findings. We highlight new opportunities to mainstream place-based research that are emerging from first, long-term networks of place-based research, second, new institutional research settings that contribute with conceptual comprehensive frameworks and capacity building tools, third, a global community of practice, and fourth, the concept of region as a bridge between local and global sustainability initiatives. We believe that the time is ripe to promote the role of place-based social–ecological research as a key contributor to achieve global sustainability goals.