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Barry Ness

Barry Ness

Senior Lecturer, Docent

Barry Ness
Contact details
  • Email: barry [dot] ness [at] LUCSUS [dot] lu [dot] se
Organisation
  • LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)
  • Service point: 59
Webpage
Other affiliations
  • Affiliated researcher
    CIRCLE
  • Researcher
    Centre for Healthy Indoor Environments
  • Associate professor
    LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)

Keywords: Sustainability Science; sustainability methods; sustainable societal transitions; interdisciplinarity; transdisciplinarity; urban living labs; sustainability experimentation; sustainability assessment; sustainable development goals

Research & leadership

Barry Ness is an associate professor in Sustainability Science and the director of LUCSUS. His research focuses on both understanding and promoting sustainable societal change through collaborative methods. Barry is the current work package co-leader for the TRANSFORM Project (2018-2026) where his research concentrates on approaches to stimulate sustainable change in small- and medium-sized enterprises via sustainability experimentation in these organizations. Furthermore, other present research focuses on fostering energy transitions via the creation of methods to access governance systems linked to sustainable energy system development.

Barry was the past director of the local interaction platform in Skåne for the Mistra Urban Futures project (2017-2020), and a work package leader for the project, Globally and Locally Sustainable Food-Water-Energy Innovation in Urban Living Labs (GLOCULL), 2018-2021 (Belmont Forum/Swedish Energy Agency).

Barry has been the Director of Studies for the PhD Research School at LUCSUS (2013-2019), and for LUMES graduate program (2011-2013). Moreover, he was the past editor-in-chief for the journal, Challenges in Sustainability (Librello Publishing). He is a board member and researcher at the Centre for Healthy Indoor Environments (CHIE), at the Faculty of Engineering (LTH).

Past research

Barry Ness' past sustainability research is diverse and has significantly focused on interdisciplinary descriptive-analytical methods development, both conceptual and quantitative approaches to understand complex systems. His PhD research concentrated on understanding the multitude of methods that exist for assessing sustainability, the development of new research approaches based on scale and cross-scale interactions, as well as integrated systems modeling of coupled socio-ecological systems. Furthermore, Barry’s past research has concentrated on how simple, sustainable innovations can be more effectively diffused in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa, on knowledge systems around direct trade coffee production chains, and on the governance of large land acquisition projects in Africa. Early research has also included quantitative socio-economic analyses (modeling) of municipal solid waste treatment systems, wastewater purification systems, and other agricultural production systems.

Teaching

Since 2003, Barry has coordinated and/or taught in a variety of methods- and sustainability-focused courses, particularly at master’s and PhD levels. Topic examples include inter- & transdisciplinarity, collaborative tools & frameworks in sustainability, design thinking, anticipatory approaches (e.g., scenarios & visioning), life-cycle assessment, EU agricultural policy, and research ethics. Since 2010, he has been course coordinator for the LUMES Sustainability Science and since 2019, the coordinator for the LUMES Methods 2: Knowledge to Action course. Since 2004, Barry has also been a thesis supervisor or examiner for over 75 theses in different graduate programs. Furthermore, he was the past coordinator for the Energy & Sustainability course the Methods course at LUMES. Barry also a part of the teachers’ team for the Global Field Exercise in Japan and Sweden, a course on participatory research methods, in the Global Leadership Initiative in Sustainability Science at the University of Tokyo (2016 through 2018).

Outreach

Much of Barry Ness’ research and teaching involves engagement with actors both in- and outside of academia to promote sustainability transitions. Currently, outreach efforts focus on how to improve the sustainability of production and consumption systems in southern Sweden via experimentation in areas such as hydroponic hop growing, craft beer sustainability principles co-creation, perennial agriculture, and indoor mushroom growing.

Research projects

 

Publications

Displaying of publications. Sorted by year, then title.

Introduction

Barry Ness is Associate Professor at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies. He is the past director of the local interaction platform in Skåne (SKLIP) for the Mistra Urban Futures project, and, and an editor for Challenges in Sustainability (Librello Publishing). His current research interests include inter- and transdisciplinary approaches for both comprehending and addressing complex sustainability challenges.

He is a researcher and work package leader for the Globally and Locally-sustainable Food-Water-Energy Innovation in Urban Living Labs (GLOCULL) project, and also a work package co-leader for the TRANSFORM project, focusing on SME sustainability experimentation. 

Last updated: 25 Oct 2024 | barry [dot] ness [at] lucsus [dot] lu [dot] se