Islands and Sustainability Lab

Islands are special cases for Sustainable Development. Methodologically and scientifically, islands are ideal ‘laboratories’ for sustainable landscape stewardship. Islands are unique in both attractiveness and climate vulnerability, they are relatively isolated and ‘on their own’ compared to mainland areas, yet they are also more dependent and need to be well connected to other areas more than mainland areas.

The Islands and Sustainability lab aims to contribute to international place-based comparative research on how islands can effectively address socio-economic and environmental challenges and issues relating to insularity (including remoteness, small size and isolation). To that end, there is a need to have a better understanding of relevant scientific theories, concepts and principles of islands as special and privileged places and of the natural and human-induced processes that are essential for understanding their past, present and future. In addition, there is a need for an enhanced understanding of socio-spatial, cultural and economic processes that are specific to islandness. Methodologically there is also great potential for social network analysis and social simulation methods (including spatial microsimulation and agent-based models) to be applied on islands to explore these themes.

An international multi-disciplinary research network

The Islands and Sustainability lab aims to build a multi-disciplinary team of scholars, including colleagues from the new Erasmus Mundus international master programme and network ISLANDS

For inquiries, ideas or interest in getting involved, contact the Lab coordinators:

• Prof Dimitris Ballas

• Prof Thanasis Kizos

• Loes Bouman