
Our Goals
-
Promote high-quality, transdisciplinary academic research that generates new forms of knowledge and new pathways for impact.
-
Resource practitioners in education, ecclesial communities, business and industry, medicine, civil society organisations, and public policy.
-
Foster transformative educational opportunities for postgraduate students and scholars engaged in research in integral ecology.
We intend to cluster our research, outreach, and educational opportunities under one or more of four overlapping strategic pillars:
-
Alternative Epistemologies: bringing to the fore alternative ethical and philosophical frameworks and narratives for eco-social action;
-
Economic/Policy Transformation towards eco-social responsibility;
-
Scientific and Technological Innovation for positive socio-ecological change; and
-
Ecological Conversion as bio-cultural evolution towards enhanced responsibility and educational praxis.
We seek to:
-
Align with the four Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Jesuits, including an incorporation of Ignatian traditions and special concern for the fourth preference: care for our common home;
-
Work within an integral ecology paradigm that seeks to rebalance humanity's relationship with the natural world in a way that is dialogical, innovative, receptive, and responsive to the specific concerns of partners working in the Global South;
-
Highlight the contribution of theology and the role of religious traditions in eco-socio-cultural transformation;
-
Embody a values orientation towards dialogue, innovation, and accompaniment/solidarity. These orientations are understood to interpenetrate each other, informing and reinforcing the work of research and promoting positive eco-social change.
-
Identify the key questions in the dialogical process, which requires a process of careful reflection and discernment. For such reflection to be authentic, we recognise the importance of an ethos of contemplation.