Dr. Nicolas W. Jager 

Abstract of the workshop project \r\nAs many of today’s urgent sustainability challenges cut across territorial boundaries, traditional\r\ngovernance responses often lead to piecemeal solutions neglecting the environmental integrity of \r\necosystems. This problem of ‘social-ecological fit’, while well-acknowledged in international and inter-local\r\nsettings, could gain less attention in the context of federal systems (e.g. Germany, USA, Brazil), where \r\nauthority over environmental resources is split within countries between several substates. Hence, this \r\nworkshop will address the question: How can we assess social-ecological fit within federal systems and \r\nits potential to meet the pressing regional environmental challenges? To approach this question this \r\nworkshop will serve as a forum to bring together experts on various aspects of federalism and \r\nintergovernmental cooperation, with those from the field of social-ecological fit and social-ecological \r\nnetworks. Social-ecological network approaches provide a promising avenue for the study of socialecological systems as they merge in the same scientific model biophysical dynamics within and between \r\necosystems, with the social and institutional dynamics set out to address these. Providing space for a \r\ndialogue between the two fields of federalism and social-ecological fit will stimulate cross-fertilization of\r\nideas in order to come up