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PEPR TRANSFORM

How can the Earth's habitability be reinvented in the context of global change?

The Programme et équipement prioritaire de recherche (PEPR) TRANSFORM is dedicated to the inter- and transdisciplinary study of how the Earth’s habitability can be reinvented in the context of global change.

Recherche

In response to the transgression of planetary boundaries and ongoing socio-environmental degradation, the programme explores pathways towards sustainability by developing and testing transformative approaches that help restore the environmental and social conditions necessary for habitable futures.

The programme’s strategy is based on a network of Laboratoires Terrestres, which are situated experimental territories where researchers, local stakeholders, and civil society actors collaborate to develop practical approaches for restoring habitability.
Coordinated by the Institut Transform, these laboratories connect local socio-ecological experiments to broader scientific, policy, educational, and collective transformation agendas.

TRANSFORM is organised as targeted projects, each addressing a specific condition necessary to advance transformative change. 

PC1 — Institut Transform for a Habitable Earth

Institut Transform for a Habitable Earth establishes both the physical location and the programmatic framework through which TRANSFORM supports research, training, and public dissemination. Located at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, it links the Laboratoires Terrestres with scientific and artistic programming, and advances initiatives in research practices, education, and arts-based inquiry.

PC2 — Conditions for the Emergence of Civil Society-Led Laboratoires Terrestres

Conditions for the Emergence of Civil Society-Led Laboratoires Terrestres investigates the processes by which local, non-institutional initiatives can evolve into Laboratoires Terrestres. This project analyses the networks that facilitate or hinder socio-ecological change and includes the development of a prototype in collaboration with civil society at Parc naturel régional Brie et deux Morins, which encompasses the Orgeval site.

PC3 — Transforming Practices, Decisions, and Public Policy Making

Transforming Practices, Decisions, and Public Policy Making examines how local experimental initiatives can inform public policy and the education of future decision-makers. The project employs concrete formats, including citizens' assemblies, the adaptation of Ma terre en 180', and an international doctoral seminar focused on livability policies.

PC4 — Supporting Academic Observatories in Their Transition to Terrestrial Laboratories

Supporting Academic Observatories in Their Transition to Terrestrial Laboratories assists existing observatories in becoming sites for co-created socio-ecological experimentation. This initiative leverages infrastructures such as Observatoires Hommes-Milieux, the Observatoires de la zone critique, applications et recherche, and the Réseau des Zones Ateliers, with implementation sites spanning from Seine-Saint-Denis to Sebikotane–Diamniadio in Senegal.

PC5 — South-North Co-Design of Laboratoires Terrestres for the Transformation Toward a Habitable Earth

South-North Co-Design of Laboratoires Terrestres for the Transformation Toward a Habitable Earth develops Laboratoires Terrestres in partnership with organisations in the Global South, positioning their knowledge at the core of TRANSFORM. The initial phase involves pilot sites in Madagascar, Vietnam, Ecuador, and Zimbabwe.

Project 1: Institut Transform for a Habitable Earth

This targeted action establishes the Institut Transform as both a physical venue and a programmatic platform for research, research-creation, training, and public dissemination. Located at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale in the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, the Institut Transform will host residencies, research schools, public events, and artistic productions. 

Additionally, it will engage with the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris as an experimental community comprising 12,000 students representing 150 nationalities.

PC1 is structured around four targeted actions

AC1 — Practices

Practices facilitates transformations within laboratories and territories. In research institutions, it builds upon Expé-1point5 and Environnement, Résilience et Action to investigate changes in research practices, including efforts to assess environmental footprint and evaluation methods. In territorial contexts, it collaborates with field infrastructures such as Zones Ateliers and Observatoires Hommes-Milieux, utilising tools like critical-zone cartography and co-created scenarios to document transformation processes.

AC2 — Education

Education addresses the transformation of educational and training practices. In collaboration with the Laboratoires Terrestres and other field settings, it develops field schools, actor–researcher formats, and educational resources that translate issues of habitability into tangible learning experiences.

AC3 — Aesthetic of Transformation

Aesthetic of Transformation revitalises inquiry by integrating research, design, artistic creation, and civic engagement. This action positions the arts as a means of collecting, describing, and rendering perceptible the gestures of transformation, rather than merely communicating externally produced knowledge.

AC4 — The Cité Internationale as a Laboratory

The Cité Internationale as a Laboratory transforms the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale into an active site for experimentation. Prototypes developed through residencies and workshops will be evaluated with the international community before dissemination to the Laboratoires Terrestres and other TRANSFORM partners.

Collectively, these actions integrate the Laboratoires Terrestres with the activities conducted at the Institut Transform. They do not aim to standardise diverse experiments into a single model; instead, they foster conditions for mutual learning and enable local transformations to inform broader developments in research, education, and public action. The overarching objective is to establish the Institut Transform as a living laboratory for practical approaches to restoring habitability.

Project 3 — Aesthetic of Transformation: Sciences, Arts & Society

Led by Donato Ricci at Sciences Po médialab, investigates how artistic and design practices can reshape the perception, description, and treatment of ecological challenges. 

This initiative is grounded in the premise that environmental crises are fundamentally crises of representation, necessitating new modes of perceiving, narrating, and inhabiting the world, as well as closer integration of scientific, political, and imaginative practices.

To address this challenge, this targeted action will establish experimental contexts in which researchers, artists, designers, educators, citizens, and field actors collaborate. The initiative will facilitate the intersection of scientific knowledge with situated experiences and local attachments. 

Disciplines such as design, theatre, architecture, cinema, visual arts, and writing will serve as modes of inquiry to investigate situations, formulate problems, and render subtle transformations perceptible.

The work will develop along three connected lines.

  • Investigating through the arts will develop artistic practices as tools for collective inquiry. Drawing on field contexts such as Zones Ateliers and Observatoires Hommes-Milieux, this initiative will devise methods to detect gestures of transformation that typically elude conventional observation or textual documentation. These sensors may include situated protocols or visual devices designed to make transformation perceptible when it remains fragile, dispersed, or challenging to articulate.
  • Transforming representations will facilitate artist–researcher residencies, particularly with the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale and the Laboratoires Terrestres. These residencies will translate scientific materials into performances, installations, visualisations, or speculative forms that renew the narration and public presentation of ecological issues. Special attention will be given to questions of scale and to representational forms that extend beyond the visual domain.
  • New Assemblies and Living Archive will establish the targeted action within the Institut Transform as a platform for collaborative inquiry and public experimentation. This initiative will develop mechanisms for researchers, artists, citizens, and field actors to share situated concerns and test collective approaches to describing ecological issues. These assemblies will also critically examine traditional categories such as expert, citizen, and stakeholder, thereby including perspectives typically excluded from public discourse.

This targeted action will culminate in a public assembly that integrates performances, installations, and discussions. It will also support an Arts, Sciences, Society residency program, a visiting fellows program in environmental humanities and design, and the production of multimodal publications with situated archives. 

Collectively, these outputs will serve as a living proof of concept for the Institut Transform for a Habitable Earth.