INVITATION
Pre-Conference Seminar (ONLINE)
We are looking forward to the upcoming 23rd meeting of our thematic group on Planning and Complexity in Gothenburg (Sweden) on 27 and 28 November 2025. To keep us connected and inspired, we have organised an online pre-conference seminar. Open to all members of the thematic group and everyone who feels connected to the group and/or the topic. You can download the invitation as PDF file here.
Adaptive governance: systems perspectives
Kristof van Assche & Monica Gruezmacher
University of Alberta, Edmonton (Canada)
Wednesday, 1st October 2025
16.00 – 17.00 hrs CET
ONLINE in Google Meet
https://meet.google.com/sud-bgns-fmd
No registration required.
In this presentation, we interrogate the possibilities and limits of adaptive governance, by revisiting the diverse landscape of systems theories, with a special interest in social-ecological systems thinking and social systems theory, but also paying homage to the classic systems thinking of Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Kenneth Boulding. We then reinterpret adaptive governance in the frame of evolutionary governance theory (EGT), which gives central place to processes of co-evolution, and highlight the importance of epistemic negatives, i.e. non- observation, non-thinking and non-learning. We distinguish infrastructures relevant when radical adaptation is required at community level.
The event is organised by Nils Björling and the research area Local-Regional Transformations at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden (local organising team 2025) together with Christian Lamker and Jenni Partanen (thematic group coordinators).
