Publications

Joyeeta Gupta, Jesse F. Abrams, David Armstrong McKay, Xuemei Bai, Kristi L. Ebi, Paola Fezzigna, Giuliana Gentile, Lauren Gifford, Syezlin Hasan, Lisa Jacobson, Aljoscha Karg, Steven Lade, Tim Lenton, Diana Liverman, Awaz Mohamed, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, David Obura, Johan Rockström, Ben Stewart-Koster, Detlef van Vuuren, Peter Verburg, Raimon C. Ylla-Català, Caroline Zimm. 2025. Thresholds of significant harm at global level. Earth System Governance. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2025.100263

The planetary boundary framework proposes ‘safe’ boundaries, but these boundaries are not necessarily ‘just’. Hence, we ask: How has the Earth Commission defined just boundaries building on the concept of minimizing significant harm and how many people are currently exposed to harm above the safe and just threshold? We document the work of the Earth Commission to address these questions using our Earth System Justice framework...

Rebecca V Gladstone-Gallagher, Jason M Tylianakis, Johanna Yletyinen, Vasilis Dakos, Emily J Douglas, Suzie Greenhalgh, Judi E Hewitt, Daniel Hikuroa, Steven J Lade, Richard Le Heron. 2025. Water Flows Downhill. Frontiers for Young Minds. https://doi.org/10.3389/frym.2025.1568483

Our planet is in trouble. We are losing plants, animals, and habitats, and the processes that link them are changing. Nature is becoming sick. People have been trying to fix this problem, but the situation keeps getting worse. One problem is people ignore a simple law of nature—ecosystems are connected. For example, when forests are cut down, soil is exposed to rainfall and washed into the sea, where it covers and kills shellf...

Aytalina Kulichkina, Annie Waldherr, Nanda Wijermans. 2025. An Agent-Based Model of Online Protest and Repression in Authoritarian Settings. Advances in Social Simulation. Pages 305–319. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-91782-0_22

Social media can amplify protests in authoritarian settings but also enable repression by regimes and their supporters. Existing research on online protest and repression has established the need for exploring mechanisms affecting their dynamics—an inquiry well-suited for an agent-based modeling approach. Drawing on relevant theories and existing models, we present a conceptual agent-based model designed to simulate social med...

Gary Polhill, Melania Borit, Corinna Elsenbroich, Harko Verhagen, Nanda Wijermans. 2025. Ethical Dimensions to Empirical Applications of Agent-Based Social Simulation. Advances in Social Simulation. Pages 411–424. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-91782-0_30

Harko Verhagen, Nanda Wijermans, Bruce Edmonds, Wenyue Hua. 2025. Invasion of the Mind Snatchers: The Use of Generative AI Agents in Agent-Based Social Simulation. Advances in Social Simulation. Pages 507–515. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-91782-0_37

Generative AI is all over the place, mainly in the form of large language models (LLMs). Recently, LLM researchers moved into the world of replacing human participants in social and behavioural science research and even social simulation. In this paper we want to make our community aware of these developments, discuss our worries but also the potential for using LLMs productively with agent-based social simulation, and pose so...

Nigussie Haregeweyn, Atsushi Tsunekawa, Ayele Almaw Fenta, Pasquale Borrelli, Panos Panagos, Ermias Aynekulu, Takeshi Abe, Peri Pablo, Simon West. 2025. A Transdisciplinary Framework to Bridge Science–Policy–Development Gaps in Global Land Management Initiatives. Global Challenges. https://doi.org/10.1002/gch2.202400261

Effective implementation of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) remains a major challenge worldwide because of its weak integration within the domains of science, policy, and development practice. Based on global analyses of soil erosion risk and the degree of implementation of SLM research, policies, and practices at the country level, we propose a transdisciplinary framework to address soil erosion through SLM. In the analysis...

Erik Andersson, Romina Martin, Pippin Anderson, Shirley Brooks, Gonzalo Cortés Capano, Alberto González-García, Viola Hakkarainen, Marion Jay, Sandra Lavorel, Margot Neyret, Tobias Plieninger, Christopher M Raymond. 2025. Resilient Biodiversity Conservation: Working with Social–Ecological Connections to Navigate Crises. BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf156

Biodiversity conservation needs to adjust and keep adjusting to changing conditions. This is largely a matter of connections—across land uses, between people and the landscapes they inhabit, and between sectors and governance levels. Connections play an important role in shaping landscape dynamics and in the ability of conservation practitioners to be able to draw on resources outside their often limited mandates or authority....

Erik Andersson, Romina Martin, Pippin Anderson, Shirley Brooks, Gonzalo Cortes Capano, Alberto Gonzalez-Garcia, Viola Hakkarainen, Marion Jay, Sandra Lavorel, Margot Neyret, Tobias Plieninger, Christopher M. Raymond. 2025. Resilient Biodiversity Conservation. BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf156

Biodiversity conservation needs to adjust and keep adjusting to changing conditions. This is largely a matter of connections-across land uses, between people and the landscapes they inhabit, and between sectors and governance levels. Connections play an important role in shaping landscape dynamics and in the ability of conservation practitioners to be able to draw on resources outside their often limited mandates or authority....

Nora Fagerholm, Neil Coles, Thomas Beery, Mario Torralba, Viola Hakkarainen, Christian Albert, Erik Andersson, Ryan Bergström, Claudia Bieling, Sandra Gentin, Carolin Klonner, Anton Stahl Olafsson, Christopher Raymond, Henna Rouhiainen, Christine Wamsler. 2025. Operational principles for fostering transformative qualities and capacities in higher education sustainability science and practice. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-025-01746-z

Education for sustainability is widely recognised as a critical pathway for driving the transformations needed to address today’s polycrisis. Despite growing theoretical and conceptual advancements in sustainability education, current approaches have not achieved the deep systemic changes required. While university networks and individual institutions increasingly integrate sustainability into their education, concerns persist...

Jakub Kronenberg, Erik Andersson, Erik Andersson, Chris Sandbrook. 2025. If a swift could fight for their existence with words: nonhuman interests and politics. npj Urban Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00263-3

Multispecies sustainability and justice can serve as narratives to support and transform nature conservation. Using discourse analysis, we study whether and how three major stakeholders engaged with such narratives to address the representation and agency of swifts. We focus on a debate on mandating ‘swift bricks’ to mitigate the loss of their nesting sites in the UK. Representation refers to acknowledging and articulating the...