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Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Institute for Advanced Study (IAS)

Tipping points towards sustainability: Theory, tools and empirical evidence

This workshop is about understanding tipping points, which is crucial for designing transition pathways towards sustainability, with the aims to reflect on and foster ongoing research on Tipping Points in socio-ecological-technical systems and further develop a research agenda. The workshop is organized by Claudia R. Binder from the Laboratory for Human-Environment Relations in Urban Systems (EPFL), Floor Alkemade from the Technology, Innovation and Society Department at University of Eindhoven, and Julia Hoffmann, Institute Manager at IAS, University of Amsterdam.
Date
4 April 2024
Time
09:30 -16:30

The current climate and energy crises have shown that we need new tools for designing measures and strategies for achieving a more sustainable future. Scholars have claimed that for designing transition pathways towards sustainability, the understanding of tipping points is crucial. Tipping points (TPs) are defined as “the point where a small intervention leads to a large and long-term consequence for the evolution of a complex system, profoundly altering its mode of operation”. When surpassing a tipping point, both the structure and the dynamics of the system change, and strongly reinforcing feedback loops emerge, which can amplify a small change, accelerating the transition towards a difficult-to-revert new system state.

There is a need for (i) further developing the theoretical background; (ii) developing tools for measuring and simulating TPs; and (iii) empirical examples on how to anticipate and foster positive tipping dynamics in complex sustainability contexts.

This workshop aims to reflect on and foster ongoing research on TPs in socio-ecological-technical systems and further develop a research agenda. The following topics will be addressed:

  1. Tipping points, tipping dynamics and resilience and transition: What is needed to make the social tipping point stick (irreversibility versus lock-ins)?
  2. Measuring and simulating positive TPs: what are the drivers or levers that induce tipping? How can we simulate positive TPs in complex systems? When is a system tipping?
  3. Anticipating positive TPs: how can we anticipate TPs? What could be sensitive intervention points for social tipping? Do we observe spillovers between sectors, behaviours that would us allow to create early warning system?

Programme

09:15

Coffee

9:30

Introduction of participants

Workshop goals / expectations
10:00

Session 1

Floor Alkemade: Social tipping versus socio-technical transitions

Van der Ploeg: Political, technological and climate tipping points (online)

Bart de Bruin: Different ways to model tipping dynamics

Sibel Eker: Tipping points in global systems modeling
12:30 Lunch Break
13:30

Session 2

Fabian Dablander: Social movements for social tipping

Claudia R. Binder: Conceptualising interventions towards social tipping 

Jan W. Bolderdijk: A method to experimentally test tipping

Vitor V. Vasconcelos: Scale, Heterogeneity, and Leverage Points
15:30

Coffee Break
16:00 Conclusion and next steps

This is an invitation-only event.