Research Team
PREAMBLE: 'DECLARATION OF CONCERN'
We are a group of concerned educators, students and eco-villagers from France, Estonia, Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands. We are concerned about the state of the Earth in times of ecological crises. Ecological issues and their social consequences call us to promote a paradigm shift, to redesign our production and consumption patterns. We joined forces to design an educational program for those who want to engage with the transition to sustainability. Collaboratively, we pooled together practices, ideas and concepts that can enrich education for transition.
Our project is called EU4TRANSITION and has three main interconnected ‘Intellectual Outputs’ which all aim to embrace complexity, foster critical thinking and inspire action for a sustainable future.
The first output is a Pedagogical Guide which offers various tools that facilitate experiential and holistic engagement in which cognitive structures, emotions as well as behaviors are taken into account. The second output is a University Master Course. The course is based on a transdisciplinary and holistic approach to ecological and social transition. Interested universities and transition schools can integrate modules of the course in their own curriculum. The third output is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in which we digitized the content of our program. It offers an overview for anyone who is interested in lifelong learning.
The three outputs can be used separately or combined. You will find cross references in each of the outputs, which point to possible interconnections.
We believe that in order to change, cognitive learning (HEAD) is not enough. Teaching and learning for transition also requires speaking to inner emotions and feelings (HEART) and learning through action (HANDS) to create embodied experience.
Between 2020 and 2023 we worked together, both online in transnational meetings and in summer schools that took place in Spain (Arterra), Estonia (Gaia Academy) and France (Campus de la Transition). The summer schools served as platforms to exchange ideas, experiment and co-create content. We all came with different national backgrounds, languages, disciplines, institutions. In working together we experienced both the power and the challenges of plurality. It meant that sometimes we agreed and sometimes we agreed to disagree.
We feel that what made the project particularly special was that practitioners and scholars of sustainability came together to learn from each other. This frequently required us to come out of our comfort zones, actively listen to what others contributed and reshape our knowledge base and our scope of practices. The plurality of views permitted us to gain insight in the cross cultural links and the divergences in our perspectives towards transition.
We want to thank all the partners, participating students, the European Union and especially its Erasmus+ program for enabling us to work on the project.
ESSEC (Business school, France), Campus de la Transition (School of Transition, France), Arterra Bizimodu (ecovillage, Spain), Universidad Pontificia Comillas (Spain), Gaia Academy (Estonian Association of Ecovillages, Estonia), Yasar University (Turkey), University of Humanistic Studies (The Netherlands).
ESSEC BUSINESS SCHOOL
Cécile Renouard,
Cécile Renouard is full professor at the Centre Sèvres and lecturer at the École des Mines de Paris, at ESSEC Business School, and at SciencesPo. She is also the director of the CODEV Research Program at ESSEC Business School. She holds a PhD in political philosophy from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. After finishing her PhD, she turned to the study of corporate responsibility in developing countries.
UNIVERSITEIT VOOR HUMANISTIEK
Fernando Suárez Müller
Fernando Suárez Müller is assistant professor in the Dept. of Philosophy and Humanism at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Born in Spain, he studied in Amsterdam, Essen and Paris. He started his career at the University of Amsterdam and later switched to Utrecht. In the meantime he also worked as an informatician for several companies. He is advisor of the Dutch Waldorf Educational University since 2015, co-founder of Economy for the Common Good Netherlands since 2013, and works for the teachers union, Aob/FNV (Lokaal Overleg) since 2023. In his teaching and research, he focuses on ethics, ecohumanism, spirituality and sustainability. In philosophy he defends an ‘objective idealistic’ position, inspired by Plato and Hegel, according to whom the ultimate principle of being is mental or spiritual. This principle, he thinks, also gives dignity to nature.
Carolina Suransky
Carolina Suransky is associate professor in Humanistic Studies, Education and Social Change at the University of Humanistic Studies and extraordinary associate professor Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. In her teaching and research, she focuses on globalization, decolonial pedagogies, pluralism and social change and has a particular interest in how higher education can play a role in advancing social justice and climate justice.
Henk Manschot
Henk Manschot studied Theology in the Netherlands, Philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris, and Political Science at the Institut Libre des Sciences Politiques, also in Paris. He is emeritus professor of Philosophy and Ethics at the University for Humanistic Studies in Utrecht and also served as rector of this university. His philosophical work has two focuses: ethics of care for humans and the Earth, and political ethics, in particular about becoming a (world) citizen as inhabitant of the earth.
UNIVERSIDAD PONTIFICIA COMILLAS
Amparo Merino
Amparo Merino is researcher and lecturer in the Dept. of Business Management at the Pontifical University Comillas. Her research trajectory is framed by the multidisciplinary research field of Sustainability Transitions, and her current research interests focus on individual agency (e.g. sustainable behavior and interconnectedness with nature), organizations (e.g. social enterprise and business models for sustainability), and underlying structures (e.g. business logics and institutional entrepreneurship; education for sustainability). She published in several high impact journals. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2357-2031
Estela Díaz Carmona
Estela Díaz Carmona is researcher and lecturer in the Dept. of Business Management at the Pontifical University Comillas, activist for human and animal rights, NGO advisor, and humane educator. She holds a PhD in Economics and Business Administration (Universidad Pontificia Comillas), a master’s in Sustainability and CSR (UNED and UJI), and a degree in Law (University of Granada). Her principal area of research focuses on ethical and transformative consumption, critical animal studies, gender, sustainable transitions, and education for sustainability. She published in several high impact journals. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4684-7437
YASAR UNIVERSITY
Cagri Bulut
Professor Cagri Bulut is director of the Strategic Planning and Excellence Office of Yasar University and ambassador of the Academy of Management, and of the Entrepreneurship Division to Turkey. Before Yasar University, he worked as a postdoctoral economist at the United Nations' FAO headquarters in Rome on the CountrySTAT project. His research mainly focused on competitiveness, culture-based strategic orientations of organizations and firm performance, social & technological Innovations, intrapreneurship, and intellectual capital management. He has been a visiting professor in several European countries and played a role in many projects funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), ISI-FRAUNHOFER (Germany), ERASMUS+, and other EU programs.
Serpil Kahraman
Serpil Kahraman is associate professor of economics at Yasar University (Turkey), Head of the Dept. of Agricultural Economics, and vice dean of the Business Faculty of Yasar University. In 2023 she earned a research grant at the University of Illinois. She completed her PhD in economics (2009) at the University of Istanbul, worked at the Dept. of Economics in San Diego State University (USA), and was a visiting postdoc scholar at the Dept. of Economics and at the Center for Global Studies of the University of Illinois from 2015 to 2016. Between 2016 and 2022 she was vice director of the Graduate School of Yasar University. Before her academic career she worked as a financial analyst and an investment advisor. Her research areas are monetary theory, political economy, and the history of economics in the Ottoman Empire.
CAMPUS DE LA TRANSITION
Pierre-Jean Cottalorda
Pierre-Jean Cottalorda (PhD in economics) was head of academic programs of the Transition Campus from its creation, in 2018, to 2021. As such, he developed partnerships with a dozen of HEIs in France and trainings on the major issues of the transition for their students (SciencesPo, HEC, École des Mines, École des Ponts & Chaussées, ICP, École Polytechnique, etc.). In this context, he taught developmental economics. He participated in research activities within the CODEV (Companies and Development) program on indicators of well-being, but also worked on new 'relational economics'. He was a lecturer at ENSTA Paris, and is currently working at the École des Ponts ParisTech.
Léa Eynaud
Léa Eynaud is head of academic programs of the Transition Campus, where she develops partnerships with a dozen of HEIs in France and trainings on the major issues of the transition for their students (SciencesPo, HEC, École des Mines, École des Ponts & Chaussées, ICP, École Polytechnique, etc.). She is also a PhD candidate in sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Her research focuses on the commons as a social movement as well as on the appropriation of this notion within ecological transition initiatives. She has lectured in various universities, including SciencesPo Paris, Nanterre University and the Humboldt Universität in Berlin.
ARTERRA BIZIMODU
Mauge Cañada Zorrilla
Mauge Canãda Zorrilla is trainer (working for several NGO's), mediator and communication specialist (IPES Pamplona). As an ecocommunity specialist, she is co-leading Arterra Bizimodu. Since 2014 she has been working on different international projects of education related to ecosocial transition. Since 1980 she has been a horticulturist in the Lakabe Ecovillage, exploring new ways of farming, and since 2003 she is the spokesman and coordinator of RIE (the Ecovillage Network Iberica). She has an academic background and a degree in Clinical Psychology, specializing in Humanistic Psychology.
Genny Carraro
Genny Carraro is trainer, consultant and facilitator. Born in Italy she surfed different areas of social activism in her life experience. From human rights activism in her teens, to international diplomacy to then land in humanitarian assistance. She co-founded the Italian Processwork School, was CEO of the European Ecovillage Network (GEN Europe) for five years, and was a board member of ECOLISE for six years, She funded a non-profit organisation for street children in the Philippines and served as a fundraiser for the project. http://www.gennycarraro.com
Monica Rose Donnellan Barraclough
Monica Donnellan Barraclough is social worker and teacher with a broad experience in the fields of formal and non-formal education. Highly skilled in international cooperation and the advocacy for human rights, with additional training in different pedagogical and psychological schools, allowing an interdisciplinary psychosocial approach with individuals and groups from a humanistic, creative and participatory perspective.
MTÜ EESTI ÖKOKOGUKONDADE ÜHENDUS
Toomas Trapido
Toomas Trapido is teacher, adult educator and co-founder of Gaia School. He has been active in introducing the Gaia Education curriculum to Estonia since 2008 and is the founder of the adult education institute, Gaia Academy (2014). He has been teaching holistic and integrated programs and biology in Tallinn Waldorf School, Gaia Academy and Tallinn University since 2014. He has a diploma in biology from 1994 and a master's degree since 2013. He co-initiated and managed several organisations and movements and also belongs to the global Gaia Education core group (GEESE).
Riinu Lepa
Riinu Lepa has a master's degree in Business Administration. She has been a social entrepreneur and was one of the initiators of the Estonian Social Enterprise Network. She is a guest lecturer in social entrepreneurship and innovation at Tartu University Pärnu College. In 2011 she helped developing parts of Gaia Education, designing a course about sustainability. For over ten years she has worked as a trainer in sustainable entrepreneurship, both for adults and youth. In recent years she started teaching and consulting about collective management methods (sociocracy). Currently she is working as a junior researcher in the TalTech Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance.