Publications

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...

Hanna Sinare, Kaera Coetzer, Lisen Schultz. 2025. Participatory governance for people and nature in multifunctional landscapes — insights from Biosphere Reserves. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2025.101585

Participatory approaches are put forward to ensure that governance for the well-being of humans and nature is legitimate and effective, particularly responding to global challenges of ecosystem degradation and climate change. As model areas for sustainable development with explicit goals of participation, the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves can provide insights on participatory governance arrangements, outcomes of p...

Sebastian Villasante, Lynne Shannon, Sandra Waddock, Lucas A. Garibaldi, Nathan J. Bennett, Joyeeta Gupta, David Obura, Albert V. Norström, Karen O’Brien, Unai Pascual, Arun Agrawal. 2025. The human right to a safe climate. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01700-y

The advisory opinions by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2025 mark a turning point in aligning international law with climate science. Both affirm climate change as a human-caused existential threat 1 , 2 . The IACtHR recognized the right to a safe climate and the disproportionate harms to vulnerable groups (for example, women, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-desce...

Johan Rockström, Fatima Denton, Albert V. Norstrom, Jesse F Abrams, Lubna Alam, David I. Armstrong McKay, Xuemei Bai, Govindasamy Bala, Chris A. Boulton, Wendy Broadgate, Stuart Bunn, Joshua E Buxton, Juan Cardenas, Raimon C. Ylla-Català, Fabrice Declerck, Natalie Davis, Donovan Dennis, Miriam L. Diamond, Carl Folke, Charlotte Kendra Gotangco Gonzales, Georgia Graells, Joyeeta Gupta, Syezlin Hasan, Lisa Jacobson, Steven J. Lade, Timothy M. Lenton, Sina Loriani, Cornelia Ludwig, Pablo A Marquet, Qondi Moyo, Aditi Mukherji, Nebjosa Nakicenovic, David Obura, Oki Taikan, Daniel Ospina, Maria Fernanda Peña, Laura Pereira, Keywan Riahi, Maria del Mar Rojas, Anindita Sarkar, Anna Shalin, Ben Stewart-Koster, Bo Su, Rashid Sumaila, Tharammal Thejna, Luc van Vliet, Detlef vanVuuren, Peter H. Verburg, Zhanyun Wang, Ricarda Winkelmann, Cunde Xiao, Caroline Zimm. 2025. Charting a transformational course toward a safe and just future: the Earth Commission’s contribution. ESS Open Archive. https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.175492980.08779908/v1

Humans are now operating well outside the planetary conditions that enabled stable and equitable development. The situation is urgent — we need a swift and profound shift in direction — a collective transformation. In response, the Earth Commission has developed a science-based framework that integrates biophysical limits with justice considerations, aiming to secure a liveable and dignified future for all. The Earth Commissio...