Future Places Centre presents: Modelling Difference

Modelling Difference: future research agendas on the interconnection between natural and human environments

A Future Places Centre Colloquium (EPSRC grant EP/TO22574/1)

Wittgenstein argued in On Certainty (1969) that all models entail some assumptions that are not captured in the model. These assumptions have to do with what is viewed as relevant for that model and what can be ‘taken for granted’. In this view, models can never model everything, but express different purposes or perspectives. This does not mean that models are not fundamental tools, as their role needs to be seen as constrained by the purposes or perspective they start from. A concern to model the life cycle of particular plants in an ecological system may well provide rich insight into the species in question, but less about the interdependences elsewhere in the ecology; a concern with modelling a micro-organism and its consumption of nutrients might highlight how these nutrients are being degraded by microplastics but not where the microplastics come from or indeed the ‘life cycle’ of those microplastics. A different model would be required for the latter. This is not to say that model-making is always a limited affair, as that using models and trying to bring them together requires enormous care and sensitivity; there is an especial importance in their limitations, in their ‘edges’.

Yet, if purposes define these differences and edges, the emergence of truly fundamental concerns to do with climate change, biodiversity depletion and society are creating a new set of overarching purposes. Many researchers across disciplines and in government have begun to explore how these purposes may reconfigure data gathering and modelling techniques. The IPBES assessment exercise is an example of this and offers a high-level perspective on the ‘nexus’ between different factors, such as biodiversity, food production and human health. In a desire to offer immediate advice for policy, however, such research can elide questions of conceptual and methodological detail, such as related to the bringing together of models about different phenomena.

It is in this context that this colloquium ‘Modelling Difference’ is convened. Its purpose is to explore how to produce model-like understandings of the social and the environmental (and its diverse sub-elements) in ways that can be brought together (or at least used alongside), for the purposes of dealing with fundamental, ‘big issue’ research questions.

Keynotes will be presented by:

Gordon Blair, Head of Environmental Digital Strategy at UKCEH, ( https://www.ceh.ac.uk/staff/gordon-blair)

Rob Short, Head of Sustainable Materials Research Cluster, Sheffield ( https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/mps/people/all-academic-staff/rob-short)

Cai Ladd, Lead, Climate Action Research Institute, Swansea ( https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/c.j.t.ladd/)

Rachel Marshall, Research associate, Future Places Centre, SCC ( https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/about-us/people/rachel-marshall)

Suzi Ilic, Coastal ecologies research, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster, ( https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/news-and-events/blog/suzi-ilic/)

The colloquium will be of interest to anyone concerned with developing state-of-the-art methods for analysing the social and the environmental and/or wanting to develop new connections in the diverse research communities concerned.

Attendance is free but limited. Registration is therefore essential to guarantee a place.

For further information contact:

Prof Richard Harper, ciAhIGhhcnBlciB8IGxhbmNhc3RlciAhIGFjICEgdWs=;

Jan Hollinshead, aiAhIGhvbGxpbnNoZWFkMSB8IGxhbmNhc3RlciAhIGFjICEgdWs=

Joshua Talley, aiAhIHRhbGxleTEgfCBMYW5jYXN0ZXIgISBhYyAhIHVr

Info: Richard Harper, SCC, Lancaster

Info: Models of Nature, Models of Thought - Gordon Blair, CEH

Understanding Materials, Understanding Nature: Rob Short,

Sheffield

Info: Socio-ecological Tipping Points - Cai Ladd, Swansea Using geographic ‘data’ to shape thinking about future land use, Rachel Marshall, SCC & LEC

Citizen science for coastal environments- Suzi Ilich, LEC

Info: Panel with speakers|

Open discussion|

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