About Us

In view of the great challenges we face in the near and distant future a European Environmental Humanities Alliance has been in the process of formation since 2011. The Alliance joins strong research environments, networks and study associations in Europe with prominent environmental humanities research orientations. In 2012-2013 a series of meetings of the Alliance partner organizations was coordinated in Oslo, Utrecht, Munich and Stockholm.

A Task Force of this emerging alliance was appointed at the fourth meeting of the parties in Sept 2013, with representatives of NIES, RCC-LMU Munich, KTH EHL, CICERO, and the Centre for Humanities of Utrecht University taking the lead. The Task Force has identified the following aims:

• Initiate a major study and report on the Environmental Humanities agenda in Europe, as the basis of a visioning process for the coming decade; this will be carried out in cooperation with the ISSC as a complement to the visioning process and study behind the report Transformative Cornerstones of Social Science Research for Global Change, which also serves as a starting point for the Alliance’s initiative.
• Identify and recruit other strong partner organizations in the Environmental Humanities in Europe with the aim of facilitating greater and more meaningful humanities participation in key environmental research initiatives in the European Community.
• Move toward the establishment of a European Environmental Humanities Advisory Council.

This developing European Environmental Humanities Alliance at present includes:

• Association for  Study of Literature and Environment — UK & Ireland (ASLE-UKI)
• Bath-Spa University Programme in Ecocriticism
• CEMUS/Center for Sustainable Development, Uppsala University
• Centre for  Humanities, Utrecht University
• Centre for Development and  Environment (SUM) and  Centre of International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo (CICERO), University of Oslo
• Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI)
• Danish Institute for Advanced Study, University of Southern, Denmark
• EcoHumanities Hub of Mid Sweden University
• European Association for  Study of Literature, Culture and Environment (EASLCE)
• European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres (ECHIC)
• European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment
• European Observatory on  Human Condition, Trinity College Dublin
• European Society for Environmental History (ESEH)
• KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
• Nordic Network for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies (NIES)
• Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich
• Task Force (chaired by Gísli Pálsson, University of Iceland) on  Role of  Social Sciences and Humanities in Global Environmental Change Discussions within  ESF/COST initiative Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth (RESCUE)