An interview with Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom will be in Stockholm next week for a seminar at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences among other things (unless the Icelandic ash cloud stops her) [update – it stopped her].  She was also recently interviewed by Fran Korten for Yes! Magazine in Elinor Ostrom Wins Nobel for Common(s) Sense: Fran Korten: When […]

Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize in Economics

Our colleague, Lin Ostrom was just in Stockholm to receive her Nobel Prize. I was fortunate to be able to congratulate Lin Ostrom before her Nobel Lecture.  Her prize Lecture, Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems » (28 min. ) is available on the Nobel website. Her colleagues at Indiana University have […]

Revisiting Ostrom’s Design principles for community-based Natural Resource Management

In her talk at Resilience 2011, Elinor Ostrom recommended a recent paper by her colleagues that reviews 91 studies that empirically evaluated her design principles for for resilient institutions for the management of common pool resources. Cox, M., G. Arnold, and S. Villamayor Tomás. 2010. A review of design principles for community-based natural resource management. […]

Classics of Social Science 2: Emile Durkheim

A guest post by Wijnand Boonstra Old Durkheim was used to taking blows, right from the day of his PhD defense in 1893. His dissertation, later published as The Division of Labour in Society, was turned down twice. The third time he got it through, but not without serious objections. Durkheim was criticized for treating “the […]

Resilience Alliance & the Integration of Social and Natural Science in Global Change Research

In a new paper Evolution of natural and social science interactions in global change research programs in PNAS (doi:10.1073/pnas.1107484110), Harold A. Mooney, Anantha Duraiappah, & Anne Larigauderie look back on the history of the integration of Social and Natural Science in global change research and relate this history, the barriers overcome, and the lessons learned […]

Interdisciplinary science – what should we measure, and why?

Research impact assessments of academic environments with bibliometric indicators are becoming increasingly important. Not only do they define where you are placed in international rankings of research institutes, but they are also being used as a basis for distribution of funds. This might sound like a smart and simple way to secure funds for world-leading […]