Our program’s project builds on a recent proposal by an interdisciplinary group of leading scientists to redefine the global commons and to recognize Earth’s large biophysical systems that provide Earth system resilience and stability as “planetary commons”. Rising risks of triggering Earth system-wide, irreversible, and unmanageable impacts affecting everyone lead to the conclusion that the global commons must be redefined to include not only globally shared geographic regions, but also the large biophysical systems that provide functions regulating the resilience and state, and therefore liveability, on Earth. This requires a fundamental shift from a focus on governing only shared resources beyond national jurisdiction (global commons), to one that secures critical functions of the Earth system irrespective of national boundaries (planetary commons). Assuming the planetary commons could provide a new paradigm for governing critical Earth system functions, the question that arises is:

How should the planetary commons be governed in order to transition to a socio-ecologically responsible and resilient future?

The aim of our first workshop is to facilitate a deep dive into the many complex issues arising from proclaiming and governing the planetary commons, allowing a small, selected group of globally recognized experts of approximately 15 people from diverse backgrounds to exchange ideas and knowledge around this issue in an interactive and reflective roundtable setting. The workshop is organized around specific themes including:
 

1. The conceptual landscape                                                                                          
2. Theories, knowledge systems and planetary commons                                            
3. Scaling up, scaling down: from urban to global planetary commons governance 
4. International law and the planetary commons 
5. Institutions for planetary commons governance
    

Each participant holds a short and provocative impulse talk connected with one or more of the above themes to inspire a critical collective discussion. Based on the results of this workshop, and a range of future events, we aim to curate a co-authored position paper that we will seek to publish open access in a high-impact international journal.