Structure, Innovativeness & Excellence of the Research Programme

Innovativeness and excellence of the research programme

The world in the Anthropocene is characterised by increasing connectivity and complexity. Current developments, e. g., in relation to climate change and the loss of biodiversity, clearly show us the extent of this global interdependence and connectedness. In various crisis contexts, it has become apparent that experts have so far underestimated such complexity and resulting regime shifts (i. e., large-scale changes with long-lasting consequences resulting from a rapid and substantial re-organization in a complex system; e. g., Scheffer et al. 2001, Brock et al. 2008) and associated systemic risks (i. e., the risk of breakdowns occurring in an entire system, rather than just in its parts of it (Kaufman 2002)). Examples are the various impacts of intensive agriculture on biodiversity loss (e. g., Dudley & Alexander 2017), soil degradation (e. g., Louwagie et al. 2011) and water scarcity and pollution (e. g., Pahl-Wostl 2019). These interconnected crises provide clear evidence for the urgency for interdisciplinary research for an improved understanding of non-linear developments that may entail systemic risks and the capacity to anticipate and respond to these. There is a need to train a new generation of scientists capable of dealing with such challenges. The RTG Ecological Regime Shifts and Systemic Risk in Coupled Social-Ecological Systems (ECORISK) meets these demands. It, for the first time, comprehensively addresses ecological regime shifts integrating ecological system dynamics, human activities, and governance. ECORISK uses intensive agriculture as a guiding example to analyse the dynamic interrelations between human behaviour and ecological systems, and to identify ways of dealing with systemic risks in coupled social-ecological-systems’ (SES) governance. Intensive agriculture is representative of the key characteristics of sustainability challenges which have proven to be quite resistant to change: complex cross-scales dynamics, high uncertainties, combined with entrenched conflicts of interest and unequal power distributions. The various agricultural production networks contain numerous cases of systemic risks, some of which have already led to regime shifts in ecosystems or are likely to do so (e. g., Franz et al. 2018, de Raymond et al. 2021). This does not only concern biodiversity loss, soil degradation and water scarcity, but also relates to climate change impact (e. g., Olesen & Bindi 2002), pest and disease out-breaks (e. g., Espinosa et al. 2020), supply chain vulnerabilities (e. g., Zhao et al. 2020) and their interactions. Improved understanding of these complex interactions is crucial for anticipating and mitigating potential crises, developing sustainable agricultural practices, and ensuring food security in the face of a changing world. Facing these challenges requires an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates ecological, economic and social perspectives to address the systemic challenges associated with intensive agriculture. In addition to the fit with the research objectives and the societal relevance of intensive agriculture, the research expertise by scientists at  Osnabrück University (UOS) also speaks in favour of this guiding example. Researchers from UOS have excellent competencies and experience in research on intensive agriculture from different scientific perspectives (e. g., Lenschow 1999, Stefanski et al. 2014a, 2014b, Franz et al. 2018, Langhammer et al. 2019, Thomas et al. 2019, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2021, Vortkamp & Hilker 2023).

ECORISK stimulates innovation with regard to at least three aspects in the above-mentioned research domains and in terms of integrating research that hitherto has largely been dealt with in isolation, as described below.

• ECORISK substantially advances scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of regime shifts in SES by effectively integrating systemic natural and social science research. Considering key characteristics of ecosystem dynamics is fundamental tomaintaining ecosystems in a desirable state to sustain the benefits humans generate fromthem (Carpenter & Folke 2006). However, environmental governance and policy design haveoften ignored the complex dynamics of ecosystems and of human-nature relationships resulting in environmental management failures (Folke et al. 2005, Pahl-Wostl 2009). At the sametime, research on ecosystems recognises the importance of human impacts, but tends tosimplify the social subsystem to an external driver, such as a constant or time-varying resource extraction rate. A recent review showed that only 13.3% of scientific publications oncoupled human-natural systems research analysed two-way links between these systems, while 15.3% analysed a one-way link from the natural to the human system, 30.6% from thehuman to the natural system, and 40.6% had no linkage between the systems (Shin et al. 2022: 4). This demonstrates the need for truly coupled systems research and interdisciplinarytraining of young researchers. Moreover, while simulation models have been used for decades to capture complex ecosystem dynamics in natural resource management (Clark 1976, Hilker & Liz 2020), in these models human behaviour is typically assumed to maximise profit. This ignores behavioural complexities, the heterogeneity of stakeholders and resource useforms, varying socioeconomic conditions, and the problems arising from trying to institutionalise effective formal and informal means of resource management (Nowak 2006, Horan etal. 2011, Lade et al. 2013, Tavoni & Levin 2014, Reyers et al. 2018). In particular, the combination of expertise from different academic fields with the envisaged integration of diversemethodological approaches, including data analysis and dynamic modelling, and experimental studies coupled with specific case studies in ECORISK is highly innovative, while theguiding example of intensive agriculture provides a natural connection of the different disciplines and methods.
• ECORISK contributes to the development of potential solutions for governance andmanagement focusing on how best to address the systemic risks associated with ecologicalregime shifts. The interdisciplinary and uniquely holistic perspective adopted in this researchreflects the complexity of ecological dynamics and the need for policies to recognise this complexity. While a wide range of alternative policy options is available today in natural resource governance (such as payments for ecosystem services (cf. Engel et al. 2008), area-based approaches for ecosystem-based management of natural resources (cf. Jones 2014),and environmental due diligence regulations addressing transnational effects (cf. Schilling-Vacaflor & Lenschow 2021, Gustafsson et al. 2022)), their adoption in major policy frameworks and ecosystem management practices has been slow (Pahl-Wostl 2015, Friis & Nielsen 2017). Moreover, addressing a systemic risk emanating from the interrelated nature ofcoupled SES seems to require even more radical changes, as new ways of organising environmental governance may be needed to deal with the uncertainty in coupled SES (Keys etal. 2019), and to respond to the (anticipated) occurrence of ecological regime shifts (Bestelmeyer et al. 2011). Given the integration of intensive agriculture in global production networks (GPNs), we are typically faced with a situation where local, even farm-level, governance decisions are embedded in transnational governance challenges (Lenschow et al.2016, Franz et al. 2018, Newig et al. 2020, Höllermann et al. 2021). The development ofsolutions to address the related systemic risk hinges on integrating the rich knowledge fromone discipline into another one (e. g., Young 2006, Ostrom 2009, Rockström et al. 2009, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013, Liu et al. 2015, Hilker et al. 2017). Thus, ECORISK provides uniqueinsights into the nature and dynamics of individual and societal responses to the prospect ofecological regime shifts and the associated systemic risks. ECORISK identifies factors thathinder or facilitate the uptake and the translation of knowledge on the complex nature of regime shifts and early-warning signals to individual and collective action.
• ECORISK contributes to equipping a new generation of innovative scientists with specialised knowledge and interdisciplinary research experience to be able to adequatelyaddress the complexity of both ecological and social systems. Doctoral students learn about the multiple facets of non-linear dynamics and their implications from an interdisciplinary perspective. At the same time, they develop sound expert knowledge in their own field of study. Such graduates are urgently needed in and outside of academia to address the diverse challenges resulting from environmental changes.

Considering the gaps identified, ECORISK substantially advances SES research, delivers innovative practical solutions to complex sustainability problems, enhances governance capacity for dealing with systemic risks in an anticipatory approach, and equips young professionals with the necessary skills to work in interdisciplinary teams and to face the challenges of ecological regime shifts and associated systemic risks. The combination of these outcomes in the context of the thematic focus of the project makes this RTG the first of its kind in Germany and, to the best of our knowledge, internationally unique.