Two ESSRG colleagues, Gergő Berta and Kármen Czett attended the annual meeting of A4Cap, the alumni network of the Alternet summer school. The week-long assembly’s original purpose was to keep the summer school spirit alive, with a strong focus on immersive peer learning, skill sharing – while forming a community.
The meeting was held from 8 to 14 June, in the small town of Spa, Belgium. Its primary target group is early-career researchers (ECRs) who previously attended the summer school in Peyresq, but it remains open to advanced researchers and instructors from the alumni network, as well as ECRs from Alternet partner institutes. Throughout the week, attendees held workshops and presentations, showcasing their research and practices, usually related to biodiversity and society, in line with the summer school’s main theme. In addition, the new cohorts of students always develop a research idea during the meeting. This year’s topic focused on mapping degrowth-oriented measures in biodiversity policy and identifying lock-ins in implementation.
The workshops encompassed a wide range of topics, from a personal journey to the Arctic, through lived experiences of improving stakeholder management, to the notion of why every ecologist should be anti-capitalist. What they all had in common was that they reflected personal commitment and passion, which made them truly engaging and meaningful. Kármen also presented her work on experiential and arts-based learning in Hungarian biodiversity education, conducted as part of the now-completed PLANET4B project, together with Tyler Kulfan, who shared his personal experience with developing a school garden in Vermont, USA. These talks were accompanied by a relaxing walk to the local community garden.
Although learning from our peers is a highly important part of A4Cap, it is so much more than that. Throughout the week, we wrote creative stories together, made our own pasta, read poems that mean a lot to us, and shared – in some cases cathartic, in others devastating – experiences from our own countries. One talk that definitely stuck with us was on the environmental impact of the war in Ukraine, and the inspiring initiatives that locals are undertaking to help nature, and themselves, survive.
It has become part of a recently formed tradition to have an Eastern European night when we cook dinner with traditional dishes from our region. We managed to surprise quite a few participants with our fruit soup recipe and the fact that it is an actual soup, eaten before the main dish. As part of the Eastern European night, the Hungarian team also shared their experience of the historic night after the parliamentary elections in April, and all the feelings and emotions that have been around ever since, both good and bad.
All these moments always remind us that, in challenging times, it is of utmost importance to stick together and support each other. And this is the deeper meaning behind A4Cap – to share, to listen, to learn, and to simply be there for each other while dancing it all out together. So huge thanks to Alternet and Biodiversa+ for helping make this gathering possible, and of course to all the attendees who brought it to life – see you next year, colleagues, friends, and wonderful beings on Earth.
