#ISSS2016 Boulder

Description: This year’s conference focuses on what it means for a system to be sustainable (“systemic sustainability”): exploring more holistic science and thinking to understand, manage, and create sustainability in complex socio-ecological systems. We are intentionally stepping outside traditional comfort zones to explore new territory and possibly find new answers. For this we recognize the importance of empowering students; removing philosophical and institutional blocks to their inquiry into such questions, and providing them with the best tools to guide their research and practical experiences. From development of new theories and practices to integration of existing ones, our challenge is to determine what will lead society into the transformations needed for a sustainable future and beyond to even greater symbiotic and innovative opportunities; and how we as a society can help initiate those changes. [Chair: John Kineman]

Description: Although every environmental agency today is calling for ways to manage whole ecosystems, we do not know how to do that. Our theories and methods to address the question of whole-system sustainability are incomplete and as a result our actions regarding individual processes, sectors, and resources can contribute to problems as much or more than to solutions. How can systems thinking help us move to another level of understanding where we can address the pressing complex systemic issues of inter-related socio-ecological systems to resolve the dysfunction of their often contradictory sectors and components? [Chair: Judith Rosen]