Empowered and Revitalised Communities
Sustainability
Environmentally responsible, small-scale solutions that align with cultural and natural preservation
Community Empowerment
Empowering communities to co-design and co-own their projects
Innovate Locally
Integrating innovations to cultural and natural elements
Equity
Reducing social and economic inequalities through accessible technologies and new skills
Why Arcadia?
Arcadia stands as one of the most enduring cultural symbols of utopian imagination, evoking the vision of a harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. From the bucolic landscapes of Hellenistic and Roman literature to its rearticulation in early modern European art and thought, Arcadia has come to represent ideals of self-sufficiency, simplicity, community, and deep ecological attunement. In the context of today’s overlapping ecological, social, and economic crises, the notion of Arcadia resurfaces not as a nostalgic retreat, but as a critical lens through which alternative socio-environmental futures can be imagined and pursued.
The name Arcadia – Center for Sustainable Transitions draws on this symbolic legacy to frame a space for research, practice, and collaboration aimed at exploring and enabling just, resilient, and ecologically sound ways of living. Arcadia is thus conceived not as a static ideal, but as an active conceptual and practical field shaped by contemporary debates in political ecology, just transition, post-growth economies, and the broader discourse of sustainability transitions.
Our Vision
We envision a world in which social and ecological regeneration are not exceptions, but the foundation of everyday life. A world where economic systems are restructured around care, sufficiency, and reciprocity—rather than extraction, accumulation, and disposability.
Arcadia aspires to become a critical and generative space for reimagining transitions beyond sustainability as technocratic adjustment, toward deep systemic transformation grounded in ecological justice, democratic participation, and plural knowledge systems. We aim to cultivate alliances between communities, researchers, and practitioners working at the intersection of political ecology, degrowth, just transition, and climate resilience.
