Call for Abstracts – Planetary Boundaries and Complex Risks

The Climate Risk Assessment Center (CERAC), together with all ten Belgian universities, invites researchers from these universities to submit abstracts for short scientific presentations and proposals for interactive workshops.

This second edition of the Interuniversity Conference Cycle on Planetary Boundaries and Complex Risks will be hosted by the University of Antwerp on December 3rd, 2026.

Following the first conference of December 2025 at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), this year’s edition focuses on droughts as a systemic hazard generating risks across ecosystems, infrastructures, health, food systems, the economy, governance, and social equality. In November 2025, CERAC published the Belgian Climate Risk Assessment (BCRA), which illustrates how droughts play a role in 12 out of 28 key risks. Although “drought” may sound narrow, its cascading effects relate to nearly all planetary boundaries as well as multiple related societal systems.

We therefore invite contributions from any discipline, provided drought and drought-related phenomena play a key role in the research question or suggested adaptation solution.

Below follows a non-exhaustive list of some relevant drought-related topic examples:

Ecosystems & Environmental Dynamics

• Impact of drought on freshwater, soil, including forests
• Drought–wildfire interactions
• Ecosystem degradation and saline intrusion caused by prolonged dryness

Food Systems

• Crop failures due to soil moisture deficits
• Food production instability and global food price volatility linked to drought
• Livestock vulnerability under water stress

Infrastructure & buildings

• Water stress and consequences for energy and industrial production (e.g. cooling tower shortages) and impacts on civil and domestic water infrastructures
• Reduced navigability of waterways affecting transport
• Impact on soil or buildings due to the alternance of drought and very wet periods, including subsidence effects

Health, Human Rights & Social Dimensions

• Health impact of drought-induced air pollution
• Drought-related mental health and psychosocial stressors
• Human rights, inequalities and social cohesion implications of drought hazards

Economy, Finance & Governance

• Economic losses due to water shortages for industry and communities
• Adverse impacts on the energy transition
• Insurance exposure under cascading risks

In particular, the conference wants to address current blind spots and unknowns in the scientific literature, policies, and CERAC’s BCRA. For instance, the BCRA identified following gaps:

Systemic & Cross-Cutting Perspectives

• Interactions between drought and other hazards (heat, wildfire, floods), contextualised by the planetary boundaries concept
• Methods for mapping compound risks and complex systems
• Transdisciplinary, participatory or citizen-science approaches to drought risk
• Action-focused research and solutions addressing adaptation to drought, including co-benefits
  

The interuniversity conference cycle aims to:

• Break disciplinary silos and strengthen collaboration among researchers from Belgian universities on planetary boundaries and associated risks
• Catalyze interactions between research and policy to enhance societal impact
• Support CERAC in identifying knowledge gaps, emerging research needs, and capacity to draw evidence-based policy advice related to climate and environmental risks

During the conference, CERAC will officially launch a call to co-develop a white paper on the knowledge gaps related to drought risks in Belgium.
CERAC will coordinate the white paper and synthesize input collected from conference participants (both active and passive attendees). The goal is to compile underexplored drought-related risks, blind spots, methodological gaps, and priority research needs. The key audience will be funding agencies, policy makers and researchers themselves. More specific topics can be suggested upon registration. Input will be collected both during conference workshops and during the few months after the event when drafting the paper. The white paper will be co-created and co-authored by conference participants, with publication in the first quarter of 2027.

Date: 3 December 2026, from 9:30am until 4:30pm
Venue: Hof van Liere, University of Antwerp
Audience: Researchers from all Belgian universities (all disciplines welcome), stakeholders, policymakers
Format:

• Morning plenary with keynotes and scientific talks
• Early afternoon interactive sessions (world café, serious game, workshops proposed via this call)
• Mid afternoon session with scientific-, policy- and practice talks (potentially using parallel sessions)
• Closing session, including next steps for the drought white paper
  

What to submit

For both talk or workshop proposals, please provide following information via the submission button below:

• Title
• Abstract (1500-7000 characters including spaces, <4000 for workshops)
• Preferred format (talk / workshop / both)
• Authors & affiliations
• Keywords
• (For workshops) Expected number of participants & required room setup

Scientific talks will be 12-minute presentation + 3 minutes Q&A. Interactive workshops can span about 1h15 and can include formats such as:

• World cafés
• Serious games
• Scenario exploration or participatory mapping exercises
• Short co-creation labs

• Stakeholder engagement sessions

• Artistic/performative approaches connected to drought risks
• Research project brainstorms
• Other experimental or creative workshop formats

Workshops should:

1. help identify knowledge gaps,
2. explore systemic linkages, or

3. enable interdisciplinary reflection.

   They will also feed into the conference’s final output (white paper). Proposals from researchers collaborating with policymakers, practitioners, civil society or artists are encouraged.

Eligibility

We welcome a broad range of participants and contribution types;

• Researchers from all Belgian universities and research institutes, especially early-career researchers
• Research using multi-, inter-, transdisciplinary and systemic approaches are particularly encouraged
• Empirical, modelling, conceptual and methodological contributions
• Policymakers and practitioners, which we encourage to submit talks and workshop ideas about the realities on the field and in policy realms – related to either challenges or solutions.

Deadline

Submissions should be submitted before June 10th, 2026. CERAC and a scientific committee covering all universities will select abstracts in early Summer and publish the program and registration form in September 2026.