Call for Abstract - Workshop on climate engagement and activism in academia and beyond

[Jakob Lundgren]

Dear colleagues,

Apologies for cross-posting.

We would like to invite you to a workshop at Halmstad University on the 23-24 April reflecting on the broader implications of increasing climate engagement among academics. See the full call attached.

Best regards,

Jakob Lundgren and Anders Hylmö

 

Call for abstracts

Climate engagement and activism in academia and beyond

Workshop 23-24 April 2026, Halmstad University 

An invitation to a workshop organized within the Nordic Summer University study circle Act, React & Reflect: Meta-perspectives on climate change knowledge.

The existential threat and urgent need for political action brought about by climate change has given occasion for actors in many sectors to re-evaluate their relationship with societal engagement. This increasingly engaged behavior (Dablander et al. 2024) is challenging ideas about value neutrality, objectivity, and the relationship between knowledge production and politics.

In this workshop we will explore the role of knowledge and expertise in various forms of climate engagement and activism in an interdisciplinary setting. We invite contributions that address conceptual or empirical questions surrounding this topic. These can include the relation between academic activism and other forms of academic engagement (Bashiri et al. 2025; Perez Vico 2018), and how research-based knowledge of climate change and transitions is used in other sectors and actors, such as social movements (Frickel, 2004; Frickel et al., 2015; Hess, 2022). We also invite contributions addressing activism and engagement in relation to debates on the nature of expertise in society (Collins & Evans 2003) and the broader question of the autonomy of the institutions of science (Merton 1973). Moving beyond academia, how do engaged actors navigate institutional spaces, for example as public servants or in climate engagement in the private sector?

Climate engagement can take many forms and occur in different contexts, each with different challenges and strategies that warrant attention. Academic activists struggle with dilemmas relating to societal expectations of objectivity and neutrality (Finnerty et al. 2024) and whether they should engage in practices of disruption and civil disobedience or pursue traditional avenues of policy advice and science communication. Professionals in other sectors face different dilemmas and challenges. Over and above the engaged practices themselves, various actors legitimize, justify and critique activism and other modes of engagement, and the relationship between their arguments and their specific expertise or their ideas about how to achieve societal impact is a question that deserves investigation.

 

We invite contributions relating to any of the topics discussed above, from any relevant discipline. See the full call for details about formats and submission.

 

Nordic Summer University

This workshop is part of Act, React & Reflect: Meta-perspectives on climate change knowledge, a three-year study circle under the umbrella of the Nordic Summer University (NSU). Through inter- and transdisciplinary exchanges during three thematic winter sessions and three summer sessions, we explore the role of knowledge in relation to climate change and sustainability transitions. The overarching aim of the study circle is to establish and grow a Nordic-Baltic research network centered on meta-perspectives on climate knowledge.

Deadline for abstracts: 12 December 2026

See the attached full call or visit our NSU web page for full information on the workshop and submissions.