Anne Jensen

This study explores how pedagogical diploma assignments act as reflective boundary objects that support teachers in transforming their practice. Drawing on 212 assignments written by in-service teachers participating in a workplace-embedded diploma program in a Danish municipality, the study investigates how teachers reflect on and initiate pedagogical change by asking the following research questions: 1: Which pedagogical practices do the teachers notice and choose to investigate – and how? 2: What improvements to their own practice do they bring forward as a result of their investigations? Anchored in Dewey’s pragmatism, Benner’s praxeological approach, and Mason’s theory of noticing, the analysis reveals that teachers frequently focused on differentiated instruction, student motivation, inclusive practices, and classroom dynamics. These investigations lead teachers to critically examine their teaching through self-initiated inquiry. The assignments not only document changes in teaching methods but also demonstrate a shift in teachers’ professional self-understanding and conceptual framing of pedagogy. Teachers often narrate their learning processes, linking personal experiences to broader educational theories, thereby bridging formal coursework with the realities of everyday classroom practice. The findings highlight the transformative potential of diploma assignments when integrated within institutional models like the University School, which supports situated, autonomous inquiry. These reflective artifacts serve as tools for noticing, principled experimentation, and ethical reflection, enabling teachers to engage deeply with their practice. The study contributes to the field of reflective teacher education by presenting a model of partnership-based profession-didactical learning that emphasizes teacher agency and boundary-crossing reflection. It suggests that structured, experience-based inquiry can lead to meaningful, context-sensitive pedagogical development when embedded in supportive professional environments.

Addressing the current unprecedented climate and environmental challenges in our urban areas and beyond entails innovation in policymaking across sectors, rather than siloing, which has often been the status quo. Nature-based solutions (NBS) can provide tangible, innovative and integrated policy solutions to current challenges, including climate change and nature renewal, therefore departing from previous sustainable development approaches. At the same time, the policy integration NBS entail mean they are subject to complex governance influences. Through a comparative analysis of interview and policy workshop data in three European city case studies, this paper examines the external, societal and governing influences on NBS innovation, and the governance structures in which NBS innovation is likely to occur—including political aspects of NBS which have hitherto been relatively unexplored. The results indicate important facilitating and hindering factors across governing, societal and external categories, and show some association between NBS innovation and decentralized policy making. They highlight the importance of policy coherence of NBS initiatives with government policy/strategy; and of the willingness by policy makers/local government staff to engage with/appeal strategically to political decision-makers regarding external policy drivers—e.g. climate adaptation and health. The data also indicates that where citizen participation was built into NBS projects, this led to both innovation and additionality in design, quality, biodiversity, multi-functionality and co-benefits of green/blue spaces. Key differences that led to differing NBS outcomes included size and complexity of the urban area, and characteristics of the governing architecture.

People-environment interactions within nature-based solutions (NBS) are not always understood. This has implications for communicating the benefits of NBS and for how we plan cities. We present a framework that highlights a duality in NBS. The NBS as an asset includes both natural capital and human-centred capital, including organisational structures. NBS also exist as a system within which people are able to interact. Temporal and spatial scales moderate the benefits that NBS provide, which in turn are dependent on the scale at which social processes operate. Co-production and equity are central to the interactions among people and institutions in the design, use and management of NBS, and this requires clear communication. Drawing on ideas from culture-based development (CBD), we suggest an approach to communicate the benefits of NBS in a neutral but effective way. We propose guidelines for planning NBS that allow the optimisation of NBS locations and designs for particular outcomes.

In this paper, we examine how the EU Climate Adaptation Strategy and especially its pivotal principle of policy integration of climate adaptation has diffused into the climate adaptation strategies of Member States. We explore how this quest for climate adaptation policy integration (CPI) was pushed by vertical diffusion of the framing and policy mixes launched at the EU level. To do so, we analyse and compare national climate adaptation strategies in two EU Member States—the UK and Denmark—during 2013–2021, which witnessed Brexit and increased attention to climate impacts. Conceptually and analytically, we draw on the policy diffusion literature centring on four potential drivers of vertical policy diffusion: interests, rights, ideology and recognition. Furthermore, to scrutinize what is diffused, we conceptualize climate policy integration including the rationale and policy instruments for climate policy integration. We find that both countries’ approaches to climate change adaptation have been shaped by rights-based diffusion in a mixture of shadow hierarchy, soft power and activation of other policy areas with binding directives and observe how what appears to be asymmetrical diffusion has strong elements of symmetrical diffusion. We further identify divergence between the cases before and after Brexit and in mandating local level actions.

Interrelationships between urban and rural areas are fundamental for the development and safeguarding of viable future living conditions and quality of life. These areas are not well-delineated or self-sufficient, and existing interrelations may privilege one over the other. Major urban challenges facing China and Europe are related to changes in climate, environment, and to decision-making that makes urban and rural landscapes more susceptible to environmental pressures. Focusing on the six European and Chinese cities and surrounding rural areas, under study in the joint EC and MOST-funded REGREEN project, we examine how nature-based solutions (NBS) may assist in counteracting these pressures. We explore urban-rural dependencies and partnerships regarding NBS that can enhance resilience in Europe and China. We analyse differences between European and Chinese systems of governance, reflecting on the significance of the scale of research needed to understand how NBS provide benefits. We highlight interactions between differently delineated sheds (watershed, airshed, natureshed, and peopleshed), which influence the interrelationships between urban and rural areas. There may be one-way or two-way interdependence, and the impact may be uni or multi-directional. The European and Chinese solutions, exemplified in this article, tackle the nexus of environmental and peoplesheds. We discuss complex human interactions (and how to model them) that may, or may not, lead to viable and equitable partnerships for implementing NBS in cities within Europe and in China.

This paper explores how varied systems of governance work at the European city level to deliver different policy mixes for implementing nature-based approaches which support integrated water management and policy. Urban systems provide unique insights here due to the concentration of consumption, economic activities and excessive land-use pressures. However, few studies are providing generic insights, rooted in policy and political theory perspectives, on the dynamic impact of urban governance systems on different mixes of policies to integrate urban nature and water management approaches. The paper fills this gap through an extensive literature review. It first draws on analysis that focuses on institutional logics of operation to understand how urban institutional arrangements of governance shape the framing of the policy problem and how this influences the choice of policy approaches. It then explores the related administrative processes including decision support tools, participatory approaches, and funding regimes. These administrative approaches deliver, potentially, different policy responses that take into account integrated nature-based policy approaches to urban water governance.

Access to water is a matter of daily survival for people around the world. Water is crucial for human survival and also central to the development of every nation. The recent literature on world water suggests that the water crisis being experienced is related to governance and not a real crisis of scarcity and stress. This paper aims at identifying water governance practices and the challenges associated with water governance in Ghana. The paper reviews the literature on the implementation of policy directives and actions with specific focus on water resources governance aspects of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Ghana. Ghana's National Water Policy is expected to turn the fortunes of the country around in terms of water resources management. Concerning water resources management, the policy advocates for an IWRM approach. Since its implementation, certain setbacks have been challenging the effectiveness of the policy, such as inadequate institutional capacity, inadequate funding, ineffective enforcement of existing regulations, inadequate legal framework, and lack of adequate data. The paper suggests, among other things, the building of both human and institutional capacity, and making the environment a government priority, as ways to contribute to the effective implementation of the National Water Policy.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer multiple solutions to urban challenges simultaneously, but realising funding for NBS remains a challenge. When the concept of NBS for societal challenges was first defined by the EC in 2017, financing was recognised as one of the major challenges to its mainstreaming. The complexity of NBS finance has its origin in the multiple benefits/stakeholders involved, which obscures the argument for both public and private sector investment. Since 2017, subsequent waves of EU research- and innovation-funded projects have substantially contributed to the knowledge base of funding and business models for NBS, particularly in the urban context. Collaborating and sharing knowledge through an EU Task Force, this first set of EU projects laid important knowledge foundations, reviewing existing literature, and compiling empirical evidence of different financing approaches and the business models that underpinned them. The second set of EU innovation actions advanced this knowledge base, developing and testing new implementation models, business model tools, and approaches. This paper presents the findings of these projects from a business model perspective to improve our understanding of the value propositions of NBS to support their mainstreaming.

The call for fundamental changes to meet the challenges of climate change is rising across scientific disciplines, communities, and countries

Climate change adaptation (CCA) is argued to require coordinated policy responses because it is a complex, long-term, knowledge intensive, cross-sectoral, and multi-level governance challenge that involves many interdependencies and actors with different perceptions, goals, and approaches. This study, therefore, examines approaches of a set of European Union (EU) member states (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (England)) to pursue a more coordinated approach to CCA policy. It specifically addresses the co-ordination approaches that the selected countries use for the development and implementation of their national CCA policies in the immediate period following the publication of the EU’s 2013 Adaptation Strategy. The analysis demonstrates that while useful coordination processes have been established in the analyzed EU member states, they have difficulty in challenging existing institutional hierarchies and decision rules. Consequently, longer-term opportunities for managing CCA conflicts and synergies among sectoral policies have to date been limited.