IRIS - Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Sustainability
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Opportunity through differences
Through IRIS, researchers of different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds
are convened to share thinking and reflections on the theme of Sustainability
research. IRIS members are striving to bring forth an approach that is as broad
and multi-modal as possible, bringing together different sciences and
fields of research.
Such emphasis on interdisciplinary research is underpinned by a conception of
Sustainability as a complex and controversial theme which needs to be framed
within an enlarged scenario and approached both by linear and systemic methods
of inquiry.
Through its characteristic way of approaching problems from different perspectives, IRIS develops a model of research which gives relevance to contradictions, different assumptions and diverging conclusions. By means of a dialogue between the different forms of knowledge it is possible to express in an effective way the complex reality of social, natural, economic and cultural systems, which are some of the subsystems constituting the problems of sustainability.
An overview of the fields of inquiry developed in IRIS
Indicators of sustainability and systems of environmental accountancy from a
scientific point of view: ecological footprint, eMergetic indicators, MEFA (Material
and Energy Flow Analysis), HANPP (Human Appropriation of Net Primary
Production).
Analysis of the interaction between economic systems and eco-systems: non-linear
dynamics, complexity, uncertainty and incomplete information.
Decisions of environmental policy under conditions of risk, uncertainty and
ignorance.
Technological approaches to sustainability: natural capitalism, appropriate
technologies and scaling.
Sociological aspects: sustainable exploitation of resources which are shared by
multiple stakeholders (individuals, collectivity, economic organisations).
Analysis of cooperative, ethical and sustainable choices and behaviours,
conducted both from an economic and psychological point of view.
Sustainability education: identification of new conceptual tools, creation, implementation and evaluation of formative opportunities.