Action4Commons consortium meeting at LUT: Polycentric governance and action situations in commons and biodiversity

30-31.5.2024

With the advent of the Finnish summer, our Actions4Commons project teams capitalized on this seasonal shift. This transition served as a metaphorical impetus, inspiring us to cultivate a sense of cohesion and cooperation. We harnessed the vibrancy of the season, directing this dynamism towards the collective advancement of our project objectives.

Kuva: Lotta Sihvo Matikainen

On May 30th-31st, 2024, the LUT Business School (LBS) team of the Action4Commons project organized the eighth consortium meeting at LUT University. The first day of this meeting started with a presentation by Tanya Heikkila, a professor, Co-Director, Center for Policy & Democracy, Director of Master of Public Policy Program, at School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado, Denver, U.S. She shed light on present and future research on polycentric governance and emphasized that polycentric governance can be utilized as a lens to look at other theoretical approaches. Her research work is highly relevant and significant for our WP3. She will contribute to our project by building theoretical framework.

After this insightful presentation of our visiting scholar and now team member, project teams took a short walk together in nature. We had a small refreshment along with Finnish coffee and delicious chocolate from Colorado by the lakeside (a Finnish cultural practice). This interaction gave us the opportunity to share our culture, knowledge, and experience to improve our team collaboration and cooperation in the project.

We then resumed our pre-scheduled program activities. First, the LUT team shared their progress in their literature review and topic modeling articles by Laura Albareda and Jaan-Pauli Kimpimäki. The LUT team demonstrated significant progress in their tasks in WP2 and shared their future directions. Following our meeting agenda, the LUT team presented their work progress in relation to WP1, sharing the progressing status of their different tasks and plans for communicating their work in the accepted conferences (Academy of Management, Chicago, U.S.A., the International Association of Business and Society (IABS), Annapolis, Maryland, Corporate Responsibility Research Conference (CRRC), University of Leeds, U.K.). From the LUT team, Ari Jokinen presented the working paper on developing a conceptual framework based on commons, stakeholders, and expansion. He concluded that biodiversity conservation is highly science- and data-driven concepts, and his preliminary findings represented that collective action is needed to maintain and enhance biodiversity. Members of both teams are planning to continue their interviews with companies and various stakeholders. We rested that evening and enjoyed dinner with all the participants, enhancing our understanding of each other. After dinner, participating in sauna sessions and lake swimming activities with fellow team members significantly enriched the overall experience and fostered stronger interpersonal relationships within the team.

Collective action is needed to maintain and enhance biodiversity

The next morning, we followed our team agenda and restarted our day by having a small coffee and discussion on WP3. Both teams had long hours of discussion to proceed with WP3 and finally succeeded in deciding the action plans for both teams. During this session, we also talked about the future events, seminars, research visits, and interviews required in the project. We are thankful to the entire LUT team for organizing this wonderful and fruitful event!