Our Work
Our Work
Actions and Ecoversities Service Circles
The life and actions of the Ecoversities Alliance are generously supported by an assembly of Service Circles. These circles accompany and care for the internal as well as external processes of the network, they are like invisible mycelial threads or the microbiota that make life in the forest soil a possibility. Each of these service circles is stewarded by members of the alliance. As service circles, they are autonomous and able to make their own decisions, while simultaneously having unique roles and shared response-abilities with the wider ecoversities lifeshed.
Each circle nurtures its own essence, and is constantly evolving, with new learnings and gifts that each of its members share and bring forward into the center, expanding the collective intelligence and sensemaking of the alliance. They have their own offerings, seasonal cycles, kinship relationships and needs. Currently there are about 16 active service circles, some of these are supported by a small scholarship/gift economy, others are not. The service circles that receive funding are related to the administrative, maintenance, financial and communication needs of Ecoversities, including supporting open calls made available for learners and members of the alliance. There have been recent additions, such as the conflict composters, sensemaking and care, and more-than-human service circles.
Service Circles
Pollinators, Exchanges & Residencies (PER)
PER supports learning journeys, exchanges, residencies, and collaborative projects across the Ecoversities network. By connecting people, communities, and learning initiatives, the circle nurtures cross-pollination, relationship-building, and the sharing of knowledge, stories, and practices across territories and cultures.
Germinators
Germinators supports the emergence of new Ecoversities, projects, and learning initiatives through seed funding, accompaniment, and collective learning. The circle helps ideas take root, nurturing new possibilities, regional collaborations, and community-led learning ecosystems across the network.
Publications
Publications supports the creation of books, articles, magazines, podcasts, films, and multimedia projects that share the stories, questions, and learnings emerging across the Ecoversities network. The circle cultivates alternative forms of storytelling, collective reflection, and creative knowledge-sharing across territories and cultures.
Communications
Communications helps stories, opportunities, and learnings flow across the Ecoversities network and beyond. Through newsletters, websites, social media, campaigns, and community platforms, the circle nurtures connection, visibility, participation, and cultures of communication rooted in care, creativity, and relationality.
Composters
Conflict Composters supports the Ecoversities Alliance in holding tensions, misunderstandings, and conflicts as opportunities for collective learning and transformation. Through Compost Heaps, restorative practices, dialogue, and shared reflection, the circle nurtures trust, care, understanding, and resilient relationships across the network.
Global Gathering
Global Gatherings supports the spaces where members of the Ecoversities Alliance come together to connect, share, learn, and dream. Through regional and global gatherings, the circle helps cultivate relationships, collaboration, trust, care, and new possibilities across the network.
Regional Gatherings
Regional Gatherings supports Ecoversities members in coming together within their own regions to share unlearning experiences, strengthen relationships, and explore possibilities for collaboration. These gatherings create spaces for connection, reflection, and learning that respond to the unique needs, cultures, and territories of each region.
Grant Admin
Grant Administration supports the stewardship of resources, accountability processes, and collaborative coordination across the Ecoversities Alliance. Working with service circles, regional weavers, and project teams, the circle helps sustain the relational, decentralized, and evolving structures that make the network possible.
Global Gatherings
Global Gatherings
Global Gatherings are one-week events, occurring every 12 to 18 months in a different continent each time (Portugal, August 2015, Costa Rica, February 2017, India, October 2018, Mexico, November 2019, Egypt, March 2022, South Afrika, June 2023, and August 2024, Brazil). Organized as an ‘un-conference’ or ‘emergent gathering’, these meetings are conceived as loose processes that leave time for sharing and co-creating with self-organized sessions and open-spaces, in order to allow us to learn from different approaches and traditions of facilitation, and to honour the knowledge that comes from emergence.
Regional Gatherings
Regional Gatherings
Ecoversities Regional Gatherings are multi-day and/or week-long gatherings to exchange and cross-pollinate between eco-versity partners from a specific geographic or cultural region, in order to strengthen the relationships among members, communities and contexts within these regions.
Residencies and Learning Visits
Residencies and Learning Visits
We support 1-2 months long research visits and residencies among people and projects part who are part of the Alliance, to learn together and support each other.
Residencies and Learning Visits
Germinating projects
Germinators supports the emergence of new Ecoversities, projects, and learning initiatives through seed funding, accompaniment, and collective learning. Each year, the Alliance offers seed funding to support the first steps of initiatives that may grow into Ecoversities.