Sandrine Simon | Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias (original) (raw)

Papers by Sandrine Simon

My sincere congratulations to the author for having articulated in such an eloquent, but also cle... more My sincere congratulations to the author for having articulated in such an eloquent, but also clear, enjoyable, and interactive way, the crucial and topical need to reconnect somatic experiences of sensing to the cultural and political dimensions of the ecological crisis. I found this article highly relevant, very well written, and also refreshingly original in its narrative and engaging nature. Deep concepts are intertwined with practical figures and down-to-earth facts, as well as

Routledge eBooks, Mar 5, 2021

Research Square (Research Square), May 19, 2023

Research into ways of helping decision-makers to better integrate the notion of sustainability wh... more Research into ways of helping decision-makers to better integrate the notion of sustainability when designing strategies have focused on reforming the main economic indicators (such as GDP) since at least the 1990s. From greening the accounts, efforts progressively turned into creating 'ecosystems accounts'. The dominant approach, developed by the United Nations, led to the creation of the System of Environmental and Economic Account-Ecosystem Experimental Accounts (SEEA EEA), 'satellites' to the main economic accounts. Although mainly used in industrialised countries, these are starting to be more widely used. This article focuses on the urgent need to make our cities (sometimes described as a microcosm of our economic systems) more sustainable and explores to what extent ecosystems accounts could help in this endeavour. However, it approaches the issue differently from what has been done so far in that it advocates considering the city itself as a socio-ecological-economic ecosystem, with its own environmental functions, whose protection will help to identify whether urban transitions are moving towards sustainability. In addition, it explores taking social considerations into account by making the use of the urban ecosystems framework presented here participatory. It thus shows how such a decision-making tool can be used iteratively to contribute to adaptive governance for urban transitions towards sustainability and highlights how such a framework can facilitate potential partnerships and make the economy more cooperative and circular. It concludes by suggesting a practical application focused on food security and demonstrates how this is strongly linked to urban resilience and sustainability.

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Sep 27, 2000

Current Issues in Comparative Education

Ensuring that learning is participatory and even further democratized seems particularly importan... more Ensuring that learning is participatory and even further democratized seems particularly important at a time when people are kept apart because of a Covid pandemic that thrives on proximity. Whilst learning is based on exchanges, it also benefits from the existence of a learning community, the access to which needs to be equal and taking account of learners’ diversity. How is Higher Education equipping itself to adapt to new learning conditions? How can it ensure that it can meet new types of needs? To address these questions, a workshop was organized at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Research on Education and Development (CeiED), Lisbon, on an emerging area of research called ‘Citizen Science’. Citizen Science has been gaining popularity in many disciplines. Here, we are interested in how it could help to improve education and learning, as well as how current research in education might also help approaches in Citizen Science to move forward. Reflections on theory were carried ou...

Urban Governance, May 31, 2023

This article contributes to research into new forms of participatory urban governance aimed at cr... more This article contributes to research into new forms of participatory urban governance aimed at creating more sus- tainable cities. Focused on food security, which has, like ‘sustainability’, economic, ecological and socio-political dimensions, our research examines how urban agricultural initiatives have been promoted in Lisbon and how connecting and integrating them in urban planning strategies could contribute to the progressive transformation of the city into a more sustainable one. This integration is viewed as a complex, ‘wicked’ problem in that it encom- passes various interdependent problems that are hard to solve due to the conflicting goals of involved actors. For this reason, we suggest that Design Thinking could help urban planners in addressing it, since it offers flexible, iterative and participatory ways of generating development insights based on users’ needs and contexts. The way this methodology is used is illustrated here to carry out the literature review on these issues in Lisbon. From this, the centrality of food systems in concerns related to urban sustainability emerged, as well as suggestions on ways to adjust urban planning so that it takes better account of them in the future. Our research aligns with recent studies on the use of Design Thinking in urbanism, some of them dealing with the food-energy-water nexus, and provides, through urban agriculture, a practical focus of study that urban citizens might feel more capable to comment and participate on.

Economics, urban planning and food systems, from chrematistike to oikonomia rowards sustainable cities, Jun 29, 2023

The history of cities and of urbanism has closely followed economic changes—so much so that citie... more The history of cities and of urbanism has closely followed economic changes—so much so that cities have been described as microcosms of our economic systems. As heavy contributors to climate change, pollution and the generation of waste, cities have been urged to embark on a transition to progressively become more sustainable. However, while efforts are being focused on transforming urbanism to face this challenge, urbanists are not sufficiently questioning the economic barometers they rely on. In an attempt to explain that making cities sustainable cannot emerge from relying on paradigms that create un-sustainability in the first place, this article suggests that insights from alternative approaches to economics (such as ecological economics) and to urban planning (that view cities as ecosystems) could help in understanding better what a transition toward sustainable cities could mean. Since jeopardized food security emerged from the recent Covid crisis as one of the main shortcomi...

This paper presents the initial outcomes of the research project ‘Innovative approaches to water ... more This paper presents the initial outcomes of the research project ‘Innovative approaches to water security using ICTs for systemic online negotiations’ carried out between the department of Systems at the OU, UNESCO PC-CP programme and UNESCO-IHE Institute of water education. It presents an analysis of how water conflicts can be managed - by being prevented through integrated water management and - through better communication amongst water stakeholders and more systemic analysis of water problems at stake. The paper explores how ICTs can provide both a support for such systemic analyses and an enabling communication tool that presents an interesting democratic alternative to currently existing negotiating platforms. The use of Soft Systems Methodologies represents an important step forward in negotiation methods in that: - it helps examine how the various parties’ perspectives can be better presented to each other, hence helping taking cultural dimensions of negotiations into accoun...

Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 1998

Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the Isss 2006 Sonoma Ca Usa, Jun 23, 2006

Water conflicts constitute an important example of some of the most complex and critical environm... more Water conflicts constitute an important example of some of the most complex and critical environmental issues the 21st century is facing. Recently, much research effort has been put into managing the various dimensions of water issues in a more holistic way through Integrated Water Management approaches. In parallel, numerous water conflicts have arisen and isolated methods and institutional responses have been developed to deal with them. In this paper, I explain why integrating issues of water security within water management considerations is important, in order to prevent water conflicts from arising. I also advocate the use of Information and Communication Technologies as inclusive, democratic systems of water governance. After exploring how and why systems methods and ICTs could contribute to taking the complexity of water issues into account as well as promoting a democratic and sustainable mode of water management, the paper presents an online systemic water conflict management method. This is the initial result of a joint research project between the systems department of the Open University and the PCCP-IHE programme of UNESCO. It shows that working with systems methods and ICTs can help transform traditionally linear modes of negotiation into collaborative learning, holistic, interest-based modes of negotiations. Without using such an approach, that enables the integration of water management, hydropolitics and online governance, the management of (complex and systemic) water conflicts, despite the development of alternative dispute resolution methods, is at risk of remaining linear, mostly based on hard data, un-participatory and non-systemic in nature.

International Journal of Sustainable Development, Mar 20, 2015

Systemic Practice and Action Research, 2004

Current Issues of Water Management, 2011