s:1822:"TI Interconnected place-based social–ecological research can inform global sustainability 
AU Balvanera, P. 
AU Calderón-Contreras, R. 
AU Castro, A.J. 
AU Felipe-Lucia, M.R. 
AU Geijzendorffer, I.R. 
AU Jacobs, S. 
AU Martín-López, B. 
AU Arbieu, U. 
AU Ifejika Speranza, C. 
AU Locatelli, B. 
AU Pérez Harguindeguy, N. 
AU Ruiz Mercado, I.R. 
AU Spierenburg, M.J. 
AU Vallet, A. 
AU Lynes, L. 
AU Gillson, L. 
AB Global sustainability initiatives are gaining momentum and impact, and place-based research can provide complementary insights to strengthen them. Here, we explore the current and potential role of place-based research into informing global sustainability initiatives by assessing the strengths, challenges, and opportunities. We show that place-based research allows for a better understanding of global social–ecological dynamics, and that transformations towards sustainability are often triggered at the local scale through the co-construction of local solutions. We discuss that the very nature of place-based research can hinder its transferability because its global integration faces temporal, spatial and governance scale mismatches, and we identify some of the key challenges of scaling-up its findings. We highlight new opportunities to mainstream place-based research that are emerging from first, long-term networks of place-based research, second, new institutional research settings that contribute with conceptual comprehensive frameworks and capacity building tools, third, a global community of practice, and fourth, the concept of region as a bridge between local and global sustainability initiatives. We believe that the time is ripe to promote the role of place-based social–ecological research as a key contributor to achieve global sustainability goals. 
";