Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plans

Organized by Early Career Committee

This panel aims to present the current Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance (ESG) Project to early career researchers and new fellows. After activities in previous ESG conferences, the Early Career Committee identified that early career researchers and scholars who recently became fellows were unaware of the Science Plan or had made remarks about challenges in navigating or engaging with it.

The science and implementation plan aims to set an agenda for research within the Project. The first science plan, published in 2009, proposed a conceptualization of earth system governance and was organized into five analytical issues: (i) the architecture of earth system governance, (ii) agents, (iii) adaptiveness, (iv) accountability and governance legitimacy, and (v) allocation of material and immaterial values (also known as the “five As”).

The second Science Plan, from 2018, presents a more complex structure and aims to “expand the global mobilization of researchers, stimulate and facilitate research collaboration, and effectively communicate and engage with society” (Earth System Governance Project, 2018: 8). It builds on a decade-long tradition of research and publication on ESG and is organized around contextual conditions - broad patterns of change providing a common language for research within the project, and research lenses, around which different disciplines, schools of thought, and scholars are invited to engage and contribute. Finally, it encompasses issues of inter and transdisciplinary depth, different ways of knowing, science-society interactions, and the integration of research into education.

This panel proposes to present the current Science Plan to early career researchers and new fellows, as well as discuss its distinctions from the first plan. Considering the 2024 Virtual Forum, invited speakers will be encouraged to reflect upon the current plan within the context of how to reimagine the Earth System Governance in an era of polycrisis.

For that, the following questions will guide the discussion:

• How does a science plan work to engage and unify a research community?
• What are the main features of the ESG 2018 Science Plan, and which research agenda it proposes?
• How does one consider the ESG Science Plan when developing their own research project?
• What are the main lessons the ESG community has gathered from the first Science Plan to the current one?
• How can we navigate the current science plan to address ESG in an era of polycrisis?
• How can we reimagine ESG using the current science plan?
• What are the main shortcomings of the current Science Plan?

Methodology

The panel will work with 6 rounds, each of 11 minutes, and 20 minutes for debate with participants. Each round works around one question and two speakers, as follows:

• Round 1 - What are the main features of the ESG 2018 Science Plan, which research agenda it proposes, and how does a science plan work to engage and unify a research community? (Louis Kotzé and Cristina Inoue)
• Round 2 - How does one consider the ESG Science Plan when developing their own research project? (Carole-Anne Sénit and Dhanasree Jayaram)
• Round 3 - What are the main lessons the ESG community has gathered from the first ESG Science Plan to the current one? (Michele Betsill and Fariborz Zelli)
• Round 4 - How can we navigate the current science plan to address ESG in an era of polycrisis? (Fariborz Zelli, Jonathan Pickering, and Dhanasree Jayaram)
• Round 5 - What are the main shortcomings of the current Science Plan? (Jonathan Pickering and Louis Kotzé)
• Round 6 - How can we reimagine Earth System Governance using the current science plan? (Cristina Inoue and Michele Betsill)