Landscape in a Changing World

Bridging Divides, Integrating Disciplines, Serving Society

Landscape matters in very many ways. Landscape is the ‘human element’ of our environment; it is a common good that visibly and invisibly frames everyday lives, helps to shape the world within us as well as around us, and contributes to meeting significant economic and environmental challenges.

It is clear that landscape research should be a key element in the European Research Area; it is an important arena for integrating the Sciences and the Humanities and a major factor in policy formulation. But its full potential is not being realised. It is divided by disciplinary barriers and scattered across several research domains. To challenge this fragmentation, a Network of Networks was established by ESF and COST, working in line with more general trends towards inter-domain integration, to produce this briefing. The Network was initiated within the humanities, but sought to take account of all domains and disciplines working with landscape conceptually and materially.

In the period 2008-2009 the Steering Committee for Humanities organised a series of workshops bringing together research communities working on landscape studies from different perspectives. Discussions at these events contributed to the development of the Science Policy Briefing on Landscape in a Changing World - Bridging Divides, Integrating Disciplines, Serving Society.

Participating ESF units:

Humanities and Social Sciences Unit                                     

Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences Unit 


Participating COST domain:

Individuals, Societies, Cultures and Health Domain