Enabling Transformative Actions to Leverage Sustainability of Eurasian Grasslands

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Norbert Hölzel
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Ecology of Land Use
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 570311942

ActSustainably investigates how institutions and social norms along with the plural values underpinning human-nature relationships cancontribute to societal transformations towards sustainability. By focusing on grasslands governance in Eurasia, the project will study (i) plural values of biodiversity, social norms, cooperative rules, and collective actions promoting sustainable use of naturalresources and (ii) institutional regimes and policy arrangements enabling uptake and endurance of such norms, rules, and actions. By applying the Leverage Points Approach (LPA), it will examine the problem from a system analysis perspective and address itat the different governance levels: local, regional, and national.The project consists of three topical work packages (WP): WP1 studies the drivers and implications of past, current, and future land uses and biodiversity conservation prospects in case study regions; WP2 focuses on institutional dynamics in biodiversity governanceand design institutional frameworks and policy arrangements enabling sustainable transformations; WP3 study the informal institutions governing access and management of common pool resources, their complementarities and conflicts with formal institutions,and examines public biodiversity values and governance preferences. WP4 integrates knowledge generated in WP1-WP3 to explore pathways for a nature-positive transformation of societies with a focus on collective actions and cooperative rules required and formalarrangements needed to ensure their success and endurance.ActSustainably comprises 4 case studies from countries with varied bio-geographical context and different institutional and socio-economic development paths. In our comparative analyses, we aim to identify generic features of institutions supporting sustainablemanagement of natural resources and explore potential for synergies and cross-fertilization across different societies and cultures. By identifying and enabling deep leverage points existing in societies, ActSustainably aims to generate knowledge for determiningactions required to avoid biodiversity loss and enable biodiversity-positive transformation of grasslands socio-ecological systems.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Switzerland
• Partner Organisation: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF); Innovation Fund Denmark; National Research, Development and Innovation Office; Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Raushan Bokusheva; Professor Dr. Peter Friedrich Wilhelm Finke; Privatdozentin Dr. Katharina Gugerell; Professor Dr. Zsolt Molnár; Professor Dr. Alexander Prishchepov