IT

Industrial Transformation

Completed




Type of Structure: program
Regional Scope: global
Parent Organisations: IHDP.ISSC, .ICSU
Child Organisations:
Duration : 1996 to 2011 COMPLETED
Contact Address: no office contact defined


General information and objectives

The Industrial Transformation Project is an international, multi-disciplinary research initative aimed at:
– Understanding complex society-environment interactions;
– Identifying (potential) driving forces for change;
– Exploring development trajectories that have a significantly smaller burden on the environment on a global scale.

Industrial Transformation research is based on the assumption that important changes in production and consumption systems will be required in order to meet the needs and aspirations of a growing world population while using environmental resources in a sustainable manner. The focus on systems and systems change research makes this project unique and different from the present mainstream of environmental research.

The project has five focus themes around which research initiatives will be elaborated:

Energy and Material Flows This focus addresses the carbon cycle as well as a number of other material flows through exploring new ways to meet energy and material needs that would have a significantly smaller burden on the environment.

Food Food focus seeks opportunities for re-organizing and restructuring social activities in food consumption and production systems. The latter systems are key due to their relation to biodiversity issues and their major impact on the environment throughout the food production, processing, transport, consumption, and waste cycle.

CitiesWith emphasis on water and transport, the Cities focus seeks ways of decoupling the improvement of human well being from negative environmental effects of the consumption and production systems that sustain life in cities.

Information and Communication Developments in the field of Information and Communication are considered to be one of the major driving forces in societal transformation and have important implications for the global environment. This focus is also a crosscutting theme embedded in each of the research foci.

Governance and Transformation Processes Both governance and transformation processes are crosscutting themes that focus on generic aspects of Industrial Transformation. This focus aims at analysing and understanding of the driving forces that are changing the way society relates to the environment.


For each of these foci, a few of the research questions have been identified as relevant to Industrial Transformation research. A summary of the research questions can be found under 'more details'.
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Last update: 4/27/22
Source of data: ProClim- Research InfoSystem (1993-2024)

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