Don't miss your chance to interact and exchange ideas with the rapidly growing network of ESP members, practitioners, educators, policy-makers, researchers, and many others from all continents. Be part of special sessions and working-groups producing outcomes ranging from journal articles, white papers, book chapters, grant proposals, database structures, websites, and much more. Important deadlines 15 August: deadline registration for (free) pre-conference trainings 1 September: closing conference registration   For more information click here.    

Welcome to the Transitions for Sustainable Development Social Science e-Conference Transitions for Sustainable Development – Social scientists meeting the challenge How are we as social scientists meeting the challenges of our changing global environment? Social science research can help us: better comprehend the complex dynamics of linked social-ecological systems, and explain how to manage our development to support resilient communities and ecosystems. This e-conference builds directly on the World Social Science Report (2013). It recognises that global environmental changes have potentially grave consequences for the well-being and security of people all over the world. The challenge we face is to secure sustainable [...]

UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL (UKZN) COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE 1 X POSITION POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP IN BIODIVERSITY PLANNING & POLICY ONE YEAR FULL TIME (RENEWABLE) SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURAL, EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES PIETERMARITZBURG CAMPUS In partnership with the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), the School seeks one postdoctoral fellow to join an interdisciplinary research programme on biodiversity conservation and land use planning. For more information, please follow this link: Advert Postdoc Fellow July 2014. Closing date for applications: 31 August 2014

POST-DOCTORAL FIXED-TERM CONTRACT POSITION (3 YEARS) with SANParks SCIENTIFIC SERVICES (nodes in Kruger, Garden Route and Table Mountain National Parks) CLOSING DATE: 30 June 2014 SANParks has attracted considerable attention for its development of Strategic Adaptive Management (SAM) as a decision making framework and governance approach. The conceptual basis of SAM has co-evolved with its operational application, the latter on a diverse spectrum of management challenges such as river health, elephant populations and fire regimes. Practicing SAM has helped to establish stakeholder engagement, co-learning and cooperative governance as fundamental values within SANParks. The organisation is now ready to embark on [...]

The Doctoral Programme ‘Climate Change – Uncertainties, Thresholds and Coping Strategies’ was approved by the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF)! Funded largely by the Austrian Science Foundation, the DK is a multi-year interdisciplinary doctoral college (potentially up to 12 years, with 3 batches of candidates), and will begin operations in October 2014. As a result, there are exciting employment opportunities for outstanding PhD students. There is also one post at the postdoctoral level. The call for applications and information on how to apply can be found here: https://dk-climate-change.uni-graz.at/en/call-for-applications/ There are sixteen fully-funded PhD student positions, with contracts starting as of October [...]

Are you an up-and-coming researcher with original ideas and a strong focus on sustainable development? Does your research have the potential to change the world? Rise to the challenge and convince our high-calibre expert jury to become one of the 25 Green Talents 2014! More information on WWW.GREENTALENTS.DE PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR ONLINE APPLICATION BY 16 JUNE 2014, 12 P.M. CET. Download the complete flyer here.

Colloquium explores the role of anticipation as an alternative way to engage with the future and complex problems. Current economic and political crises are characterized by unsolvable, complex problems. In the effort to try and come up with workable solutions to these crises, the notion of anticipation is increasingly at the heart of urgent contemporary debates. At the recent Anticipation: Complexity And The Future colloquium jointly organised by the Centre for Studies in Complexity (CSC) and the Association of Professional Futurists (APF), in Stellenbosch, South Africa, presenters explored how the notion of anticipation is coming to the foreground as an emerging field of study. From the [...]

The Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) research program is inviting applications for projects that will deliver “blue skies” research providing innovative, new approaches that enhance the understanding of the way in which ecosystem services contribute to the sustainable alleviation of poverty for poor people (especially those living in low-income countries). The Major objective of the grant is to enhance ESPA’s academic and development impact by changing the way that the world views the links between ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. ESPA is a 7-year interdisciplinary research program that aims to deliver high-quality, cutting-edge research that will improve understanding of [...]

Passionate about your science and want to tell the world all about it? Interested in learning how to write about your research for a popular audience and getting published in the Mail & Guardian? We are looking for master's and doctoral candidates at South African universities who want to work with the M&G's science editor, Sarah Wild, to have their writing published in a collection of South Africa's best postgraduate science writing. From quantum biology to cosmology, we will help you to tell the country about your research.   Need some help getting started? The M&G will be running a series of [...]

The 11th Literature & Ecology Colloquium will take place on 11 and 12 September at Oxwagon Lodge, Hartbeespoort Dam. This year, we invite papers exploring the relationship between words and our inland waters: rivers, dams, rains, pipleines, taps, irrigation schemes, floods, droughts. While the colloquium particularly encourages papers on southern African literatures, explorations of other areas of the world are also welcome. Comparative perspectives can be especially enlightening. Suggested, but by no means exhaustive, topics might include the following: ۞Waters in indigenous oral literatures (eg. rains in San cosmology; spiritual significance of pools in Xhosa writing) ۞ Rivers as barriers/goals/conveyances in [...]