Accelerated learning about institutions, economics, and the environment in the Anthropocene – the Zhejiang Summer Workshop case

ABSTRACT

Accelerated learning for the Anthropocene is a recursive process of receiving, processing, and deliberating about the changing state of human-nature relationships in a world, which is characterised by economic growth, social tensions, environmental stress, and increasing interconnectivity. It requires a basic understanding of the role of economics, institutions, and values from a complexity science perspective. This paper is an example of an accelerated learning case. As a response to a 36 hours summer workshop on ‘Institutions, Economics and the Environment in the Anthropocene’ we reflect on the role of economics, institutions, and values for making intelligent decisions in increasingly complex environments and provide an outlook for the future format of learning. An essential insight is that we need more transdisciplinary knowledge exchange at academic institutions, as it is a tool that helps navigating through an increasingly complex world.

KEYWORDS:

• Anthropocene
• economics
• institutions
• complexity
• learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Conventional (neoclassical) economics takes the extreme adaptationist view that whatever currently exists is best – because it has evolved and proven to be so.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yingyi Jin

Yingyi Jin is a Ph.D. student in Land Resource Management at Zhejiang University with an interest in environmental policy, specializing in land and water environment. To date, her research focuses on three broad themes related to the environmental economics: (1) assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural conservation programs in China, (2) analyzing human behavioral impacts on the ambient environment using economics experiments, and (3) probing the causal relationship between climate change and green innovation using high-frequency datasets.

Franz W. Gatzweiler

Franz W. Gatzweiler is professor at the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Executive Director of the International Science Council’s global science programme on “Urban Health and Wellbeing: a Systems Approach”. He studied agricultural and institutional economics at the University of Bonn and the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany. He is senior fellow at the Center for Development Research, University of Bonn and external affiliated faculty of the Ostrom Workshop, Indiana University, USA. His current research interests include the governance of complex systems, systemic risk, uncertainty and systemic transformations towards ecological civilization.

Feifan Huang

Feifan Huang is a Ph.D. candidate in Administrative Management, School of Public Administration at Zhejiang University. She got her Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations from Zhejiang University. Her research is mainly focused on the credibility of institutions in China, especially the credibility of supervisory systems on grass-root cadres. Meanwhile, she has interest in evaluating government performance from the perception of citizens and has participated in writing reports on social opinions of municipal government performance. Her research fields also include the application of digital technology in grass-root governance in China.

Michael Fartaoui

Michael Fartaoui is a PhD candidate in Urban and Rural Planning at Zhejiang University. He is a member of the Institute of Urban and Rural Planning Theories and Technologies, which is part of the College of Civil Engineering and Architecture. He has obtained a master degree in economics from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. His research focuses mostly on the economic aspects of urban planning, and more on innovation policies and innovation districts. He is particularly interested in researching how China has set up policies to channel resources towards innovation.