Integration Research Theme

About

The emerging proliferation of nature recovery actions need to be coordinated, and the vast amounts of data need to be analysed, in a way that satisfies the wide range of aspirations and values that people and organisations have for nature recovery. We also need to support the delivery of local, national and international ambitions and commitments to nature, health, human rights, food production and climate change mitigation. These commitments have synergies and overlaps, but also trade-offs that need to be exposed and navigated.

To tackle this challenge, we will build an Analysis and Decision Platform that integrates the scientific insights and societal considerations developed though our Ecology and Society Themes, with large and complex data developed through our Scale Theme. State-of-the-art AI tools will help design new approaches for collective decision-making within and across landscapes.

The knowledge system will first be applied and tested in detail in our Case Studies. The system will enable us to connect human insights with multi-scalar datasets to inform local decision making and integrate local outcomes with global drivers and targets. This will allow us to investigate the design features of new forms of collective intelligence and will, thus, become a testbed for governance and finance innovations for nature recovery.

In this theme we will also explore how synergies and conflicts between nature recovery, other social and cultural values, and other development objectives that compete for land (agriculture, urbanisation, infrastructure) can be integrated at different spatial scales. We will also explore how different elements of nature recovery combine and scale, leading to integrated strategies for nature that match local and organisational contexts and goals, building resilience for ecosystems and society, while also contributing to national and international goals.