IOER Conference 2024 "Space & Transformation: Living in Harmony with Nature"

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated in drastic fashion the inextricable link between human well-being and healthy ecosystems. Today, however, ecosystems and biodiversity around the world are facing considerable societal pressures and are moving dangerously close to critical tipping points: ecosystems and their services are being degraded to such an extent that more than one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. Significant non-renewable natural resources are being overexploited while cascading environmental risks threaten the livelihoods of large sections of the population. For these reasons, transformative change seems more urgent than ever.

This is particularly true with regard to spatial development, insofar as the relationship between humans and nature is negotiated and shaped directly in landscapes, regions, cities and urban districts. So what needs to be achieved in spatial development within the next 10 to 20 years to ensure that humans can permanently live in harmony with nature? How can novel human-nature partnerships and vibrant human-nature relationships be shaped at different spatial scales?

The IOER team will discuss these questions together with guests from science and practice.

Relevant input from internationally renowned keynote speakers

Three highly esteemed international guests will provide important impetus for the dialogue:

• Prof. Nancy B. Grimm, School of Life Sciences (SOLS) at the Arizona State University (ASU), USA – Keynote: Envisioning positive futures and nature-based solutions for the Anthropocene
• Prof. James Evans, Manchester Urban Institute at the University of Manchester, UK – Keynote: Transformative governance: Experimenting, Learning, Changing
• Prof. Harini Nagendra, Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability at the Azim Premji University, India – Keynote: Building Ecologically Smart Cities: Mapping human-nature interactions in Bangalore over the centuries

In addition to these keynote speeches, the IOER conference offers various interactive contributions from science and practice in 28 sessions. The event will investigate which spatial approaches and methods can help to greatly accelerate the replacement of destructive ways of living and doing business with sustainable ones. The focus is on different perspectives and approaches that can enable and accelerate transformative change. They are reflected in the different conference tracks:

• Positive visions of a good life that inspire and motivate individual and collective actors in spatial development
• Strategies and tools for transformative governance, planning, innovation and revitalisation
• Complex spatial analyses, indicators, models and simulations
• Circularity and resilience in building and settlement development
• Regeneration of ecosystems and biodiversity as well as nature-based solutions
• Open topic

Summer School of DLGS for PhD students

At the beginning of the IOER Conference, on 25 September, the Dresden Leibniz Graduate School (DLGS) jointly run by the IOER and TUD Dresden University of Technology, is organising its international Summer School for PhD students. It also focuses on the overarching topic "Space & Transformation: Living in Harmony with Nature".

Registration is closed. If you have any questions, please contact the organisation team via e-mail: tagungioer@ioer.de

Link to the conference website
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Background
The IOER Conference is a place for inter- and transdisciplinary exchange. It addresses its questions to both scientists and practitioners. In addition to IOER staff, important protagonists of national, European, and international transformation and spatial research provide impulses for the IOER Annual Conference.

Contact at the IOER
Professor Dr Wolfgang Wende (concept),
Katrin Vogel (organisation)
e-mail: tagungioer@ioer.de