RECOMS

“There are more imaginative ways to create care-full spaces, and this is a resourcefulness to which I shall return” (Smith 2005: 14)

RECOMS is an Innovative Research and Training Network entitled ‘Building Resourceful and Resilient Communities through Adaptive and Transformative Environmental Practice’. Running from 2018-2022, it received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 765389.

The primary purpose of RECOMS has been to provide advanced training to fifteen early stage research (ESR) Fellows in transdisciplinary approaches to supporting resourceful and resilient community environmental practice. As an integral part of their training, all fifteen fellows have undertaken doctoral level research study aimed at investigating and tackling key societal sustainability challenges across a range of different domains (e.g. food, water, forestry, farming mobility, climate change), and scales. The individual doctoral studies have been organised around three inter-connecting themes: Adapting and Transforming; Collaborating and Connecting; and, Unlocking and Empowering.

Nurturing the potential of community groups to create adaptive and transformative sustainability pathways has been a consistent feature of all fifteen projects, whilst the use of visual, creative and participatory research methods has acted as a golden thread to their respective approaches. In addition to undertaking doctoral research, all fifteen ESRs benefited from advanced training in a range of scientific, professional, personal and transferrable skills.

The RECOMS consortium of eleven institutions located in six countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Netherlands and the UK) comprised of universities, government research institutions, a national park, an SME and non-profit community organisations. This composition allowed a comparative approach to studying community resourcefulness across a range of national settings in the EU and beyond. Moreover, in accordance with the transdisciplinary nature of the entire project, both the Fellows and their research directly benefitted from the fact that they have brought with them to the project a global array of nationalities and cultures, as well as a diverse mix of scientific backgrounds (e.g. environmental humanities, landscape architecture, engineering, planning, geography, economics, sociology).

Further information on the 15 Fellows, their doctoral research and the range of outputs arising from the RECOMS project are available from the project website: www.recoms.eu