Special Issue "Territorial Approaches to Sustainability"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Elodie Valette
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CIRAD, UMR ART-DEV, F-34398 Montpellier, France; ART-DEV, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, Univ Paul Valery, Univ Perpignan, CNRS, Montpellier, France
Interests: territorial development; food systems; participatory impact assessment
Dr. Jérémy Bourgoin
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CIRAD, UMR TETIS, F-34398 Montpellier, France; TETIS, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, AgroParisTech, Montpellier, France
Interests: territorial development; land use planning; participatory approaches

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the signature of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, significant diplomatic and political achievements have been reached since 2015. A challenging global framework for sustainable development has been renewed, bringing forward the need to identify concrete actions to be implemented at various scales, from local to global. Toward this purpose, territorial or place-based approaches are expected to play a major role.

Territorial approaches build on the acknowledgement that “geography matters” (Voos, 2005), and on the “increasing acceptance that sectorial approaches to land management are no longer sufficient to meet global challenges such as poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation, and food production” (Reed, 2015). Umbrella terms for a plethora of methods and tools, territorial development approaches provide a better understanding of place-based issues, resources, and stakeholders; they build on the recognition of stakeholders’ participation as a fundamental principle and on the involvement of different sectors to address complex issues in an integrated manner. They seek to link and balance local imperatives and needs with nationally planned actions and global agendas.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to take stock of the progress made in research, policy, and practice in the field of territorial development. In particular, we expect this Special Issue to reflect on key critical points in designing and implementing integrated territorial approaches for sustainable development. Submitted papers could focus on:

  • Innovative methods and tools for the diagnostic phases.This section will focus on the innovative methods and tools designed to unravel local complexity in an initial diagnostic phase. A place-based diagnostic is used as a baseline for project monitoring and/or as a way to collectively build a common understanding of the issues at stake; it enables an acknowledgement of the interactions between a diversity of local stakeholders, resources, and activities.
  • The issues of inequalities and power asymmetries in participatory methodologies. This section will focus on how these issues are addressed through improved participatory methodologies and by analyzing the conjunctural dynamics of these asymmetries. 
  • The shaping of institutional environments for inclusive and sustainable territorial approaches. Acknowledging the well-known needs for decentralization, capacity building at subnational and local levels, multi-level coordination, and the vertical and horizontal integration of policies and programs, this section could display various institutional frameworks and environments that foster place-based approaches.
  • The impact assessment of territorial approaches. This section will focus on impact assessment and M&E methods specific to integrated territorial projects and programs.
  • Scaling. Good practices are poor “travelers” (Morgan and Morley, 2014). Scaling initiatives and projects to effect larger-scale change involves a more complex and diverse process than simply “diffusing” or spreading a product or model (Moore, Riddell, and Vocisano 2015). This section will address the strategies and challenges of scaling (up and out) and display various ways to facilitate and amplify transformative action.

Dr. Elodie Valette
Dr. Jérémy Bourgoin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • territorial development
  • integrated landscape management
  • SDGs
  • place-based approaches
  • multisectoral
  • participation

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
The Collaborative Process in Environmental Projects, a Place-Based Coevolution Perspective
Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8526; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158526 - 30 Jul 2021
Viewed by 294
Abstract
Environmental research and management organizations are mutually dependent when it comes to produce and use knowledge in favor of responsible action in an increasingly uncertain world. Still, science and practice interfacing remains a challenge when it comes to implementing and sustaining a collaborative [...] Read more.
Environmental research and management organizations are mutually dependent when it comes to produce and use knowledge in favor of responsible action in an increasingly uncertain world. Still, science and practice interfacing remains a challenge when it comes to implementing and sustaining a collaborative process. In this paper, we develop a descriptive framework to study the coevolution of scientific and planning activities embedded in a territorial system. Scientists and managers dynamically interact through institutional arrangements, operationalization of knowledge and information and communication tools. We propose an approach to systematically document transdisciplinary pathways and characterize the bounding process between organizations on a typical case-study, the coastal Thau territoire (Mediterranean Sea, France). By tracing, illustrating and analyzing coupled trajectories of environmental sciences and planning for the last decades, the Systemic Timeline Multistep methodology tackles cross-fertilization mechanisms. The relational analysis draws on the elaboration of a synchronic timeline to question co-evolution and grasp causal mechanisms of research projects interactions with management pathways. Its application on the Thau territoire shows that scientific activities and public actions shaped each other in a continuous process of interaction. It also gives insights into the contributive roles of long-term place-based research and intermediate organizations for the emergence of new sociotechnical arrangements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Territorial Approaches to Sustainability)
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