Digital Learning Environment

This Digital Learning Environment aims to unlock practical insights and tools to help land use decision makers set up meaningful collaborations, discover people’s motivations and beliefs, unravel policy processes and assess sustainable land use changes.  

The Digital Learning Environment is currently under development with an initial focus on MOSAIC's six policy labs, located in Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland and one at European level. Each MOSAIC policy lab aims to address different challenges and will work at either a regional, national or European level. Get involved in the policy lab discussions:

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Digital Learning Environment

Welcome to the MOSAIC Digital Learning Environment! This platform aims to unlock practical insights and tools to help land use decision makers set up meaningful collaborations, discover people’s motivations and beliefs, unravel policy processes and assess sustainable land use changes.  

We start with an initial focus on MOSAIC's six policy labs. Members of each policy lab can create simple posts, share images or videos and comment on each other's posts. Throughout the MOSAIC project additional features and sections will be added to the Digital Learning Environment. 

Belgium
Denmark
Europe
Hungary
Portugal
Switzerland

Belgian Policy Lab Launch

The Belgian Policy Lab Flemish Ardennes has officially launched!

Mosaic will work together with landscape park Flemish Ardennes - one of five Flemish  landscape parks approved in October 2023 – to understand and stop the loss of grasslands and the typical mixed landscape features.

The policy lab is a collaboration of the Landscape park coalition, the Flemish Land Agency (Vlaamse Landmaatschappij) and INBO (Research Institute for Nature and Forest - Instituut voor Natuur- en Bosonderzoek).

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On Tuesday 16 May 2024, these partners came together with the Mosaic researchers (VITO, INBO, ILVO (Instituut voor Landbouw, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek)) to discuss the first lines of the collaboration!

Together we aim to find answers to some of the following questions, and develop a strategy to stop unwanted land use and promote desirable land use change:
- What is the evolution of the grasslands until now?
- How big and what kind of pressure are these grasslands actually facing?
- What is a desirable land use change, from an ecological, social and/or economic perspective?
- What are the motivations and the values of the grassland users?
- How can we make policy more effective and more intelligible for the land users?

Most importantly, the kick-off was a joyful opportunity for everyone to get to know each other!

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Belgium

Portuguese Policy Lab Launched

On Wednesday (8 May), the Portuguese Policy Lab on Land Use and Landscape in the Alentejo Region was officially launched!

With only 5.2% of the country's population, the Alentejo region accounts for almost a third of the country's territory. The low population density, together with the diversity of landscapes, which vary dynamically from the coast to the interior, create a unique mosaic in terms of ecological, aesthetic, symbolic and material values. However, the transformation of the Alentejo landscape over the last 30 years has been accompanied by an increase in the intensity of land use.

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Mosaic will work regionally with several entities to discuss major land use changes and develop solutions to integrate conservation, farming systems and energy into a multifunctional and sustainable landscape. This policy lab will create a space for dialogue and collaboration, involving different partners in the discussion of planning solutions and policies for the Alentejo region.

Three MOSAIC members are involved in this policy lab: Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL) and Agência de Desenvolvimento Regional do Alentejo (ADRAL). Last Wednesday, we met with nine partners from the private sector, public administration, associations, NGOs and academia who accepted the invitation to participate in this first launch day and commit to future initiatives. It was an opportunity to present the MOSAIC project, the objectives of the Policy Lab and to discuss the first lines of collaboration!

We are very grateful to be able to start this promising collaboration and will be sharing more updates soon!

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Portugal

Swiss Policy Lab launch

Last week, the Swiss Policy Lab officially launched!

Taking place in Bern, Mosaic partners and 18 representatives of Swiss cantons, municipalities and energy providers discussed the challenges of renewable energy expansion in Switzerland.

Ahead of the launch we developed a prototype tool that can be used to assess the suitability of different locations for renewable energies. During the launch participants tested the prototype and gave feedback on the usefulness of the tool and how to improve its functionality and user-friendliness.

Based on a discussion of open research questions and needs of the cantons, we devised the following initial goals of the policy lab:

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- To enhance the prototype tool that can be used to assess suitable locations for renewable energies
- Improving our understanding of future land-use changes and their interplay with renewable energy planning
- Comparing 'Business As Usual' pathways of renewable energy expansion with pathways targeted at reducing conflicts between energy production, biodiversity and landscape protection

We would like to thank everybody being part of the Swiss policy lab for their enthusiastic engagement and look forward to the future activities of the lab!

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Switzerland

1 comment

James
May 31, 2024, 1:28 pm

Congratulations on the launch!