The planet's habitability (CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences thematic priority)

The issues associated with climate change and broader environmental change involve all CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences disciplines. These include the issues perceived, described and taken into account (or not); envisaged and implemented scenarios, the study of their transferability levels and possible generalisation; analysis of the forms of vulnerability of individuals and groups and of inequalities and the way these structures and are structured by current and future developments. The primary focus is on just transitions, namely the need for contemporary societies to face the consequences of climate change and broader environmental change by adapting. This can be achieved through the development of economies that are sustainable from an environmental standpoint but also economically, culturally, politically and in social terms. This work involves long and very long-term studies which means it is possible to learn from changes to ancient societies and even their disappearance; comparative approaches suited to the wide range of possible applications given the profound territorialisation of situations; the interplay of scales given that local-level changes and solutions dovetail with their global counterparts; micro-local and experiential analyses aimed at understanding the deep-rooted mechanisms of usage and the large datasets required to best understand processes and create projections of possible trajectories; the study of controversies and the forms of expertise involved in decision-making, etc.

The accepted meanings of shared sciences range from the involvement of populations in data collection to the co-production of science through knowledge-sharing mechanisms and are also strongly involved in work on this priority subject for the Institute. This priority means numerous interdisciplinary collaborations with other sciences are involved.

Research centers and networks