Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS): PECS’s second open science conference, Oaxaca (Mexico)

Guest editors: Berta Martín-López, Patricia Balvanera, Robert Manson, Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba, Albert Norström

This themed collection draws from the community of practice built by PECS for place-based social-ecological sustainability research. Specifically, this themed collection highlights some of the key insights gained during PECS’s second open science conference in 2017 (PECS II), which took place in Oaxaca, Mexico. The conference gathered 335 participants from 35 countries across all continents. The participants consisted of a wide diversity of researchers, students, policymakers, Indigenous leaders, representatives from research funding and development agencies, members of non-governmental organizations, producers, chefs and artists.

This themed collection aims to reflect about the contributions of place-based social-ecological research for achieving global sustainability goals. With this themed collection, PECS provide: (1) insights about conceptual and methodological developments that are able to bridge the gap between local and global scales in sustainability science, (2) reflections on methodological developments of co-production of knowledge by different social actors across governance levels for sustainable transformation, and (3) lessons from place-based transdisciplinary research that promotes multi-stakeholder engagement for sustainability transformation.

by Berta Martín-López