Changing Planet

‘Changing Planet’ is a Stockholm-based research cluster advancing the integrated understanding of the interacting social, ecological and technological forces that shape our Earth. Researchers at Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Beijer Institute and the Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere Program are working with international collaborators on the global dynamics and cross-scale linkages between humans and the rest of the biosphere.

’Changing Planet’ is an umbrella initiative to jointly coordinate global research at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics and the Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere Programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is a response to the need for improved understanding of global and cross-scale processes and interactions between our Earth’s social and ecological components. This knowledge can improve our ability to realize sustainable stewardship of the biosphere.

Researchers have greatly advanced our understanding of the Anthropocene by mapping and quantifying linkages of many biophysical components at the planetary scale. However, we still have a poor understanding of social-ecological connectivity at the global scale. The pace and extent of global changes means there is a pressing need to develop our understanding of how social processes are interconnected and how they drive and interact with the processes of the biosphere at multiple scales.

This umbrella initiative of globally related research aims to provide a platform to develop this knowledge, making use of the diverse methodological toolboxes and skillsets of the contributing research programs and their international partners.