At an international conference exploring pathways towards a more just and habitable world, MRI Executive Director Carolina Adler joined researchers and practitioners for a timely discussion on how international research collaboration and networks can remain connected and resilient in an increasingly fragmented world.
From 2-5 June 2026, more than 300 researchers, scholars, and practitioners gathered at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, for the international conference ‘Towards a Just and Habitable World: Exploring the Role of Technology.’ The Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) was represented by MRI Executive Director Carolina Adler, who contributed as an invited speaker to discussions on the future of international research collaboration and scientific networks.
Organised by the Future Earth Pathways Initiative, the Centre des Politiques de la Terre at Université Paris Cité, and the Centre de Compétences en Durabilité at the University of Lausanne, together with several partner organisations and global research networks, the conference brought together perspectives from across the natural and social sciences, engineering, humanities, and inter- and transdisciplinary research.
Against a backdrop of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, social inequalities, and geopolitical instability, participants explored how technological systems can both support and undermine efforts towards more sustainable, equitable, and resilient futures.
Rethinking International Research Collaboration
Carolina Adler participated in the conference’s Opening Forum, ‘Research and Higher Education for Just Transformations in Turbulent Times,’ as an invited speaker in the workshop ‘Rethinking International Research Collaboration and Networks.’
The session brought together representatives from Future Earth’s Global Research Networks, partners, and initiatives, including the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment, bioDISCOVERY, the Global Land Programme, the Programme on Ecosystems and Society, the German Committee Future Earth, and the MRI.
The discussion came as we face a particularly challenging moment for international science. Participants considered how geopolitical tensions, changing funding landscapes, and increasing fragmentation are affecting the ability of researchers and institutions to collaborate across borders, while the environmental and societal challenges that research seeks to address remain fundamentally interconnected and global.
“International research collaboration and science diplomacy are needed more than ever during today’s increasing geopolitical tensions. International networks support international collaboration, transdisciplinary approaches, new generations of sustainability scientists and consolidation of knowledge for policy and societal decisions.” – Wendy Broadgate, Interim Executive Director of Future Earth.
Drawing on the experiences of the networks represented, discussions explored both the pressures facing international collaboration and ways of making research networks more resilient. These included more distributed approaches to global research infrastructure, greater recognition for the coordination functions fulfilled by networks, and greater diversification of sustained funding sources.
For the MRI, which works to connect mountain researchers and research communities across disciplines and mountain regions worldwide, the discussion spoke directly to the importance of sustained international networks. Such networks can provide continuity and connections across geographical and disciplinary boundaries, while enabling knowledge exchange and networked collaborations, supporting emerging generations of researchers, and helping bring diverse forms of expertise and evidence into dialogue.
For Adler, it was also a key opportunity to highlight the importance of designing and implementing a tailored impact tracking framework that captures and evidences the added value and impact of a network and its community building efforts. Tracking the MRI’s impacts and demonstrating its value proposition is one of eight key functions currently being undertaken by the MRI Coordination Office in this funding period.
Technology, Sustainability, and Questions of Choice
Across the wider four-day conference, participants examined technology not simply as a collection of tools, but in relation to the social, political, environmental, and ethical contexts in which technologies are developed and used.
Discussions ranged from artificial intelligence, geoengineering, and critical minerals to low-tech approaches, community-driven innovation, agroecology, and nature-based solutions. Questions of justice, sufficiency, democracy, and power ran throughout: what kinds of technologies are needed, who determines their development and use, who benefits from them, and what forms of knowledge and alternative approaches may be overlooked?
Rather than assuming technological innovation to be inherently beneficial or inevitable, the conference invited participants to consider which technological systems societies might choose to maintain, transform, or move away from. Alternatives to predominantly high-tech or resource-intensive approaches also featured prominently, including perspectives grounded in Indigenous knowledge, ecofeminism, decolonial thinking, and community-led innovation.
Towards More Resilient Research and Collaboration
One of the threads emerging from the conference was the importance of keeping questions of technology connected to wider questions of equity, democracy, and environmental limits. Meaningful choices about technological futures, participants argued, require critical discussion not only about what is technically possible, but about whose priorities and values shape those choices and their consequences.
The discussions on international research collaboration highlighted a related challenge for the scientific community itself: maintaining the relationships and infrastructures that allow knowledge to move across disciplines, sectors, regions, and borders at a time when those connections are under increasing pressure.
The MRI’s participation in the Opening Forum provided an opportunity to bring the perspective of a global mountain research network into this conversation, while exchanging experiences with other international networks facing similar challenges. As sustainability challenges become increasingly interconnected, such spaces for dialogue can help research communities consider how international collaboration can remain inclusive, resilient, and capable of supporting the knowledge and partnerships needed to respond – both now and in the future.
Our sincere thanks to the organisers for extending this invitation to the MRI to participate and contribute.
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Cover image by Jeton Bajrami.