A Habitat of Planetary Ecologies for Sustainable Futures (HoPE Nexus)

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Welcome to the HoPE Nexus, a vibrant initiative at the forefront of sustainable development and innovative research. HoPE Nexus stands for Habitat of Planetary Ecologies and embarks on a mission to harmonise insights from the past, actions from the present, and possibilities for the future. Driven by the University of Warwick and an ensemble of dedicated partners, this initiative zeroes in on addressing crucial issues such as climate change, economic inequalities, and resource-based governance. Through an interdisciplinary approach, HoPE Nexus offers participants opportunities to engage in activities like serious games, AI-driven simulations, and virtual field trips, enhancing their understanding and capability to devise adaptive governance models. By merging global strategies with local knowledge and encouraging decolonial perspectives, we aim to rethink environmental governance and design forward-thinking solutions. Together, we invite students, experts, policymakers, and communities alike to join in crafting resilient and sustainable futures.

Connected Community Activities

Upcoming activities: Coming soon.
Past activities

How to get involved?

Students and educators: please contact the Warwick Local Facilitator, Dr Mélina Delmas (melina.delmas@warwick.ac.uk).

Connected Community Members

Co-lead: Jane Webb (UW). Email: Jane.A.Webb@warwick.ac.uk: Coming soon.
Co-lead: Elena Korosteleva (UW). Email: Elena.Korosteleva@warwick.ac.uk: Coming soon.
Co-lead: Adela Glyn-Davies (UW). Email: Adela.Glyn-Davies@warwick.ac.uk: Adela is the Head of Design Studies and an Associate Professor at Design and Global Sustainable Development BASc (Hons), at the University of Warwick.
Adela Glyn-Davies is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and designer specialised in systems and interactions. Her work is process responsive, which challenges the applicability and adaptability of the following disciplinary practices: audio-visual interactive code, projection mapping, data mapping and radical cartography, product (tangible and intangible), site installation, traditional and digital graphics and experimental video. The focus of her work lies in exploring systems through their imbalances and mismatches in the context of inclusivity and long-term relatability, which seeks methods for the exploration and capturing of overlooked, often neglected and excluded data. Her professional and personal practice captures the intersections of high tech and emerging technologies with primitive and radical processes, towards new sense-making in design complexity.
Co-lead: Bryan Brazeau (UW). Email: B.Brazeau@warwick.ac.uk: Coming soon.
Co-lead: Marta Guerriero (UW). Email: M.Guerriero@warwick.ac.uk: Marta Guerriero is Associate Professor and International Partnerships Coordinator in the Global Sustainable Development Department at the University of Warwick. She is also Thematic Lead (Economic Sustainability) of Warwick’s ‘Sustainable Cities’ Global Research Priority. She is an applied economist with interests in development and environmental economics. She approaches her research and teaching in an interdisciplinary manner, also incorporating aspects of social and environmental policy, political economy and development studies. During her academic career, she has taught several modules focusing on sustainable development issues and collaborated with a range of UK and international stakeholders in the field.
Co-lead: Feng Mao (UW). Email: Feng.Mao@warwick.ac.uk: Coming soon.
Co-lead: Vangelis Pitidis (UW). Email: Evangelos.Pitidis@warwick.ac.uk: Dr Vangelis Pitidis is an Assistant Professor of Global Sustainable Development and Impact Lead at the School of Cross-Faculty Studies and at the University of Warwick. He teaches at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, convening core modules on urban resilience, sustainable cities and disaster risk managment. With a background spanning social sciences, urban planning, human geography, and GIS, he brings a holistic perspective to research, teaching, and policy engagement, his interdisciplinary research focuses on urban resilience, citizen science, and participatory governance, particularly in disaster-prone areas across the Global North and South. Vangelis has been actively involved in major international UK and EU funded projects and across Europe, Latin America and Africa, focusing on enhancing urban resilience, promoting sustainable development and ameliorating disaster risk planning, management and response.
Co-lead: Hita Unnikrishnan (UW). Email: Hita.Unnikrishnan@warwick.ac.uk: Coming soon.
EU Partner: Júlia Seixas (UNL). Email: mjs@fct.unl.pt: Coming soon.
EU Partner: Boštjan Botas Kenda (UL). Email: Bostjan.Kenda@aluo.uni-lj.si: Boštjan Botas Kenda is a Full Professor of Visual Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Graduated in Editorial graphics at IED, Milan, Italy. He also teaches visual communication at the Faculty of Architecture and at the Faculty of Computer Sciences. He is the founder and partner of studiobotas, a graphic design studio which concentrates on book design and signage in public space. In 2017, he chaired the commission for the national design strategy document. From 2017 to 2019, he was Vice-rector for Art and Creativity at University of Ljubljana, from 2013 to 2017, the Dean of Academy of Fine Arts and Design, from 2011 to 2013, the Head of Department of Visual Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design. Botas Kenda is cooperative in promoting practice-based research and design driven doctorate through CA²RE, ADAPT-r(PRS) and the Doctorate Programme in Art at University of Ljubljana.
EU Partner: Dominique Sciamma (CY). Email: dominique.sciamma@cyu.fr: Director and Dean of CY School of Design @ CY Cergy Paris Université FRANCE
President of APCI (France Design promotion Agency)
Holder of a Bachelor with honours in Mathematics and a Master's Degree in Theoretical Computer Science and after an eclectic career within international companies, Dominique is the creator and Director of the first ever design school in a university (CY Cergy Paris University) which welcomed its 130 first students in September 2021. He previously lead and directed Strate School of design for 7 years until September 2020, transforming it into the 1st French private design school. Before leading Strate, he successively created and led its "Intelligent Systems and Objects" department and its research activity.
Always surfing on new technologies, he successively worked as an AI researcher, software developer, marketing director, head of an AI business unit in Singapore, strategist (for Bull), head of a complex problem solving team, multimedia marketing (for EDS), electronic editor (for La Tribune economic newspaper), multimedia author, CMS author (as an independent digital consultant), before passionately investing on Design pedagogy.
A prominent figure in the design ecosystem in France, Dominique is a determined promoter of transformative design, through his actions, words and writings. As president of APCI, the main French design promotion association, he played a very active role in the Design National Conference (2019) for the implementation of a national design policy. He is a board member of the French National Design Council.
Global Partner: Guy Midgley (SU). Email: gfmidgley@sun.ac.za: Guy Midgley is a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the School for Climate Studies at Stellenbosch University. Midgley has focused on research and teaching on climate change risks and solutions in social-ecological systems in southern Africa since 1984. A-rated by the National Research Foundation in Earth Sciences, and previously A-rated in Plant Sciences, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, a Lifetime Humboldt Research awardee, the RSSA Marloth Medal recipient for lifetime scientific contributions, and is rated amongst the most influential scientists in climate change (Thomson Reuters 2022), and highly cited (Thomson-Reuters 2014). As co-ordinating lead author of IPCC he is a co-awardee of the Nobel Peace Prize (2007). He served as co-ordinating/lead/contributing author for IPCC 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th assessments (1999 to 2022), and CLA for the IPBES Global and Land Reports, the combined IPBES/IPCC risk assessment, and co-chaired the CBD Climate Change and Biodiversity ad hoc Technical Expert Group Report (2009). He chaired SA’s Global Change Science Committee in the 1990s and 2000s, growing the annual budget to over R100 million, transforming the sector. As SANBI Chief Director, he facilitated SANBI registration as National Implementing Entity for the UNFCCC Climate Change Adaptation Fund (over R100 million annual budget), prior to taking up a Professorship at Stellenbosch University in 2014. He has served as trustee and past President and Vice-President of the US-based JRS Biodiversity Foundation, leveraging a USD50 million endowment supporting African biodiversity informatics. He currently works in a wide variety of southern African ecosystems, and leads efforts by Stellenbosch University’s School for Climate Studies and Center for Invasion Biology to build multidisciplinary approaches to teaching, researching and communicating climate change risk. He has graduated many MSc and PhD students, with several of his students now occupying senior positions in SA government and national and international academic institutions and NGOs.
Global Partner: Filia Garvaldis (MU). Email: Filia.Garivaldis@monash.edu: Coming soon.