Research

Jonas Egmose, Associate Professor, Ph.D.,

Action Research and Eco-Social Transformation

Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University

In my research, I strive to understand and enable eco-social transformation through changes in ways people understand, organise, and act being part of wider living ecologies. Through action research I am working with social learning spaces for knowledge creation and change across research and practice. My work is anchored in often ambivalent lived experiences faced by people in transitions as starting points for democratic deliberations, critical analysis, utopian orientations, practice development and reorganisation.

My research is motivated by the need profoundly to renew human-nature relations in responding to the ecological crisis. I am searching for ways to enable eco-social transformation through the emergence of new and old ways of understanding and practicing human living as an inherent part of wider living ecologies. I am My research aims to understand modes of thought and enable tangible practices beyond extractivism and mastery of nature. In my research, I work across critical theoretical social science, ecofeminist approaches, and critical utopian action research.

My research in particular concerns: how experience with regenerative and agroecological practices can enable new understandings and approaches to living ecologies; how everyday-life- and experience-based social learning can enable transitions across various actors in rural and urban settings, and; how exemplary practices and participative processes can be part of stimulating democratic and societal transitions beyond root-causes to the ecological crisis.

My educational background is a PhD in Social Science (2011), Master in Environmental Planning (2007), and Bachelor in Philosophy of Science and Natural Science (2003) from Roskilde University. As an educator at the Department of People and Technology (2012-) I have extensive teaching experience at bachelor, master, and doctoral levels, and leadership experience from heading the Society, Space and Technology PhD program (2021-24). My current research includes international research projects with a clear interdisciplinary profile, reaching from local fieldwork to analysis and strategy in larger consortia. I am continuously collaborating on establishing new research projects, collaborating with practice partners, advisory, and development and supervision of PhD projects.

Keywords: Action research; Agroecology; Care; Citizen Science; Citizen’s participation; Commons; Critical theory; Critical utopian action research; Community-based; Ecofeminism; Everyday life; Future creating workshops; Multi-actor approaches; Process facilitation; Social learning; Sociology; Participative planning; Reciprocity; Regenerative; Urban nature; Urban planning.

Research activities (selected)

TransLighthouses (2023-26)

Translighthouses is a cross-European Horizon project for universities and practitioners to create inclusive community-based approaches to transformative nature-based solutions in and across urban and rural settings. In the Danish part of the project I work in collaboration with post.doc Anna Umantseva with a particular focus on:  

• Living Knowledge Lab on Regenerative Farming in collaboration with the Danish Regenerative Association we are working with regenerative nature-relations and -practices, social and economic organisation through community-based agriculture, and development of local and municipal management and collaboration.

• Transformative conceptual framework for inclusive approaches to nature-based solutions. In collaboration with the international research team we are working with developing inclusive and transformative approaches for rethinking questions on social inclusion, community-based economy and ecological approaches opposing extractivism and mastery of nature.

Agroecology Transect (2022-26)

Agroecology Transect is a cross-European Horizon project with the ambition to grow our understanding of a wide range of agroecological farming practices so that we can increase their uptake by European farmers. In the Danish part of the project, I am working closely together with Professor Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen in the field of conservation agriculture in Denmark and analysing social learning processes in the research consortia.

• Innovation Hub on Conservation Agriculture and Agroecology. In collaboration with Agrovi we are researching practices and ambivalences in farmers' experience working with soil health and transitions towards agroecology.

• Analysis of reflexive research governance. In collaboration with the international research team, we are developing methods for enabling and analysing reflexive research governance in interdisciplinary collaborations across researchers and practitioners, and how the consortia can integrate these insights into research governance towards agroecological transformation.

From Citizen Hearings to Citizens Assemblies (2020-)

Advisory and analysis of the first Danish Climate Assembly. Member of the expert advisory group for the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities on the Danish Citizen Assembly on Climate (2020-21). In collaboration with associate professor Annika Agger, we are analysing experiences from this type of democratic innovation for further use in national and municipal participatory planning contexts.

Citizen Science for Sustainability (2007-09)

The Citizen Science for Sustainability was a three-year London-based participative research project aiming to provide local communities with a say in the future of urban sustainability research. Analyses of the project are integrated in my book Action Research for Sustainability. Social Imagination between Citizens and Scientist. Routledge.

Centre for Action Research and Democratic Societal Change

Together with Janne Gleerup and colleagues, I am working closely with the continuous development of the Danish Centre for Action Research and Democratic Societal Change. Situated at Roskilde University, the purpose of the Centre is to strengthen and develop action research oriented toward democratic societal development from a Danish, Nordic, and international perspective.

PhD supervision

In my PhD supervision I have in recent years worked in the field of urban nature and the role of nature in urban planning, including supervision of Søren Christensen on community gardening and co-supervision of Signe Filskov on urban nature.

Leadership in research and education (recent)

2023-26   Workpackage leader (WP2) on conceptual frameworks, Translighthouse (Horizon).

2023-26   Task (T3.3) on reflexive governance, Agroecology-Transect (Horizon).

2021-24   Head of the PhD Programme in Society, Space and Technology, the Doctoral School of People and Technology, Roskilde University.

2020-22   Member of the study board at Social Science Basic Studies, Roskilde University.

Teaching and supervision

I have extensive experience with teaching, supervision, and course development in the fields of sustainability, planning, action research, methodology, and philosophy of science at the bachelor, master, and doctoral levels, including heading the PhD program on Society, Space and Technology (2021-24) at Roskilde University.

Selected publications

2023: Umantseva, Anna & Egmose, Jonas: Sustainability Beyond Extractivism? Insights from reciprocity and caring practices amongst regenerative farmers. Social Sustainability in Unsustainable Society: Concepts, Critiques and Counter-Narratives. Springer.

Jonas Egmose, Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen, Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen 2022: Action Research in the Plural Crisis of the Living. Understanding, Envisioning, Practicing, Organising Eco-Social Transformation. Educational Action Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2022.2084433

Jonas Egmose, Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen, Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen & Lars Hulgård 2021: The regenerative turn: on the re-emergence of reciprocity embedded in living ecologies. Globalizations, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2021.1911508

Egmose, Jonas; Gleerup, Janne & Nielsen, Birger Steen 2020: Critical Utopian Action Research. Methodological inspiration for democratization? International Review of Qualitative Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940844720933236

Egmose, Jonas 2016: Organising Research Institutions through Action Research. In: Gunnarson, Ewa; Hansen, Hans Peter; Nielsen, Birger Steen: Action Research for Democracy. New Ideas and Perspectives from Scandinavia. Routledge Advances in Research Methods. Routledge.

Egmose, Jonas 2016: A Common Sense of Responsibility. Reflecting on Experiences of Commoning amongst Citizens and Scientists in London. In: Hansen, Hans Peter; Nielsen, Birger Steen; Nadarajah, Sriskandarajah: Commons, Sustainability, Democratization: Action Research and the Basic Renewal of Society. Routledge Advances in Research Methods. Routledge.

Egmose 2015: Action Research for Sustainability. Social Imagination between Citizens and Scientist. Routledge.

Eames, Malcolm; Egmose, Jonas 2011: Community Foresight for Urban Sustainability: Insights from the Citizens Science for Sustainability (SuScit) Project. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 78, Issue 5, pp. 769-784. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2010.09.002