SLU news

Restoration in focus for this year's IDA group

Published: 05 September 2024

A third round of SLU Interdisciplinary Academy (IDA) will run 2024-2025. Starting in November, participants will during the coming eight months spend 20% of their working time exploring interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary approaches.

IDA 2024-2025 consists of one focus group, working with the project

Beyond restoration: Interdisciplinary exploration of restoration for present and future generations

Participants are:

  • Hedvig Nenzén, Department of Ecology
  • Carolyn Faithfull, Department of Aquatic Resources
  • Judith Lundberg-Felten, Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology
  • Patrik Oskarsson, Department of Urban and Rural Development
  • Minh-Xuan Truong, Department of Ecology

Earlier this year, the EU Nature Restoration Law was adopted, highlighting the growing importance of restoration as many European natural habitats face poor environmental conditions. Restoration efforts are becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, as they aim to support not only ecological recovery but also deliver social benefits and reflect diverse societal values. To address the expanding scope and objectives of restoration, researchers have developed a variety of frameworks to guide these projects. However, the practical application of these frameworks has yet to be thoroughly evaluated.

The IDA group, with expertise spanning landscape ecology, restoration, soil biology, rural development, and environmental psychology, will first analyze and synthesize existing restoration frameworks. The group will then investigate how these frameworks are applied and understood in restoration practices, ensuring they contribute to both current and future socio-ecological goals. Additionally, the project will identify the objectives of these frameworks, assess their potential limitations, and highlight key success factors when applied in real-world scenarios.

More about Interdisciplinary Adademy (IDA)

Facts:

The Interdisciplinary Academy (IDA) at SLU was established 2022 and is run as a project by the NJ Faculty and SLU Future Food with the aim of building a long-term organisation for the development of cross-disciplinary research at SLU. Inspiration has been drawn from the Pufendorf Institute at Lund University and experience has also been drawn from the Futures Lab at SLU. The hope is that the programme will lead to increasing knowledge of, and interest in, cross-disciplinary research work, strengthen the ability to process research questions from a cross-disciplinary perspective, and facilitate cross-disciplinary research collaborations between different departments at SLU. The future development of IDA is managed in dialogue with SLU's other future platforms. 

The NJ Faculty's strategy for 2021–2025 states that cross-disciplinary approaches should be part of the work to contribute to the transition to a sustainable society. The strategy states that the faculty will "strengthen the ability to process research questions from a cross-disciplinary perspective" and "facilitate cross-disciplinary research collaborations between different departments ".

SLU Future Food is a platform that stimulates and develops cross-disciplinary research and collaborations for economically, ecologically and socially sustainable food systems.

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