International Summer School on Geography and Sustainability 2026

Frontiers in Telecoupling and Metacoupling Research for Addressing Global Sustainability Challenges

• Date: August 9-16, 2026

• Location: Beijing Normal University, China & online

• Language: English

• Target audience: Master's students, PhD students, Postdocs, and other researchers.

• Website: http://igu-geosus.org/pages/telecoupling-summer-school.html

1.Organization

• Host: Beijing Normal University (BNU)

• Organizer: Faculty of Geographical Science, BNU

• Support journal: Geography and Sustainability

2.About the Summer School

Theme：Frontiers in Telecoupling and Metacoupling Research for Addressing Global Sustainability Challenges

Telecoupling refers to human-nature (or socioeconomic-environmental) interactions over distances. Metacoupling encompasses telecoupling, as well as interactions between adjacent systems (pericoupling) and within systems (intracoupling). Telecoupling and metacoupling are increasingly shaping global sustainability challenges, including biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, and the degradation of ecosystem services and natural resources, such as land and water.

The International Summer School focuses on telecoupling and metacoupling research to address global sustainability challenges, aligning with global priorities such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, and the Climate Change meeting at COP 30 in Brazil. In addition to lectures, participants will have opportunities to discuss and work on team-based research projects on telecoupling or metacoupling to enhance learning and likely lead to high-quality publications. Participants can choose research projects related to telecoupling/metacoupling or have them suggested by instructors, and projects may continue beyond the summer school because publishing research often takes more time. (Research projects at similar training programs in the past have resulted in many high-quality publications in outlets such as Science.) The lecturing topics include:

• Telecoupling and metacoupling frameworks

• Applications of the telecouipling and metacoupling frameworks

• Methods and tools for operationalizing the telecoupling and metacoupling frameworks

• Future directions of telecoupling and metacoupling research for addressing global sustainability challenges

• Writing high-quality papers

3.Agenda

• August 9 (Sunday): Registration

• August 10-14 (Monday-Friday): Lectures/ Projects/Discussion

• August 15 (Saturday): Participant Presentations/Discussion

• August 16 (Sunday): Departure

4.Contact Us

• Ms. Du (Beijing Normal University)

• Email: geosusconference@bnu.edu.cn

link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6ud237yTk8_s_5N6ZfWmPw?from=singlemessage&scene=1&subscene=10000&sessionid=1776666957&clicktime=1776667468&enterid=1776667468&ascene=1&fasttmpl_type=0&fasttmpl_fullversion=8218465-zh_CN-zip&fasttmpl_flag=0&realreporttime=1776667468301&click_id=2