Call for proposals

Abstract

First mentioned in the 1970 MIT report, the concept of ecosystem services was popularized by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005).  It’s now used and claimed by many researchers. But numerous questions are still without answer. The thought needs a disciplinary, methodological and epistemological mixing, from ecology to anthropology and from basic research to its territorial application. This symposium is thus aimed at researchers of all disciplines, knowing that its objective is to question the ecosystem services concept in urban environments, with a particular emphasis on its cultural input.

Themes

- Epistemology: Which contributions? This will imply to think about ecosytem services in cities.

- Methodology: Which methods to study cultural ecosystem services in urban green spaces? Which results?

- Relevance: Which operability for such an approach? Which relationship with the actors/decision-makers/users?

Studies can concern all kinds of nature in cities (from urban to suburban spaces), as much ornamental parks as forest and semi-natural spaces and allotment (community) gardens, even vertical green spaces. Examples may be taken as much in France as in Europe or everywhere else in the world.

This symposium is aimed at researchers of all disciplines.

Following this event, a book will be published. It will synthesize all the papers, which will be presented at the symposium.

Time schedule and guidelines submission

Friday, November 20, 2015: deadline for sending paper proposals

Proposals should be uploaded on this website (for further details on the procedure, click on "Abstracts submission" in the menu on the left side). They consist in abstracts of 3.000-4.000 signs (including spaces, word or pdf file). Authors must specify their name, first name, function, attachment structure and email address. If you have any question, please contact Amélie Robert (amelie.robert@univ-tours.fr).

Thursday, January 7, 2016: answer from the evaluation of symposium paper proposals by the scientific committee

Friday, April 8, 2016: deadline for sending long papers (guidelines on their format will be provided at the time of proposals selection)

Tuesday toThursday, May 24-26, 2016: Symposium proceedings

- Download the detailed call for proposals : English version; German version