Unit presentation

History and location


The laboratory was set up in 1969 under the name CIMA (Centre Interdisciplinaire d'Etude sur les Milieux Naturels et l'Aménagement Rural) by Georges Bertrand. At the time, it was located on the premises of the Institut de Géographie D. Faucher Geography Institute. It became associated with the CNRS in 1972. In 1994, it was recognised as a UMR under the name GEODE (Géographie de l'Environnement UMR 5602) and since then has been jointly supervised by the Université Toulouse 2 (Univ. Jean Jaurès since 2014) and the CNRS. Initially attached to the SHS department of the CNRS and to section 39 of the CoNRS, in 2006 the laboratory became part of the EDD department as part of a dual attachment (60% SHS/40% EDD) and, in the same year, obtained a secondary attachment to section 31 of the National Committee.

In 2011, when its contract was renewed (2011-2014), the laboratory decided to become part of the young Institut Écologie et Environnement (INEE) of the CNRS, while maintaining its dual affiliation with sections 39 and 31 of the CoNRS. It has therefore retained a secondary attachment to the Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales.

In 2022, the laboratory will bring together researchers from CoNRS sections 31 and CID 52, whose lead institute is INEE, and sections 39 and 32, whose lead institute is INSHS, as well as teacher-researchers from CNU sections 23, 67, 69, 70 and 36.

Over the last 15 years, the laboratory's staff has almost doubled, and its range of disciplines has broadened. In keeping with its multi- and inter-disciplinary culture, the historical core, anchored in the fields of physical geography, socio-geography and remote sensing, has gradually been strengthened by the arrival of members from different disciplinary fields: Geosciences, Palaeoenvironment, Ecology, Geosystemic Physical Geography, Social Geography, Archaeology, Education Sciences and more recently Conservation Geography, Anthropology and History. This diversity is the strength of the GEODE laboratory, positioning it at the interface between the social sciences and the environmental sciences. It is able to use original, interdisciplinary approaches to tackle the complexity of the interactions underlying past, present and future socio-environmental dynamics.

Over the same period, and thanks to the support of the CNRS, the GEODE laboratory has seen a gradual increase in its resources, but above all in its technical capacity. The last contract (2015-2020) undoubtedly marked a major step forward in this area, with the installation of an operational technical platform, adapted to the needs and ambitions of the UMR, in new premises made available by the Université J. Jaurès.

On 1 November 2022, the unit will have a total staff of 64, including 45 permanent members (EC, C and ITA), 1 EC PAST, 2 emeritus members and 14 non-permanent members (PhD students, post-docs, fixed-term contracts) as well as 2 guest members (CEN Occitanie).

The laboratory is located in the Maison de la Recherche (MDR) buildings, covering an area of 365m2. Its technical platforms and storage rooms (PANGEME platform) (275m2) are located in the new MDR2 buildings and in the annexes of the Goeury house (garage).
 

Structuring of the unit

The GEODE unit is structured around a number of unifying research areas, determined by their specific methodological features. While the main subject of research, namely complex human-environment interactions and socio-environmental dynamics, represents a common denominator for the entire research community that makes up GEODE, it is approached in different ways, from a variety of conceptual angles and methodological approaches. It is these different methods, as well as their spatial or temporal reference windows, that enable the laboratory to work just as much, and often jointly, on the detection of changes in progress (observatory, monitoring), as on the characterisation of these interactions over the long term (geohistory, historical ecology, palaeoenvironment), on the effects of public policies on contemporary trajectories, and on the impact of environmental change on the environment.
The effects of public policies on contemporary trajectories and future developments (socio-geographic approaches, conservation geography, anthropology), as well as the construction of knowledge likely to be transmitted as part of education for sustainable development. This diversity has been organised by identifying the main priority areas of research for the unit and according to the scientific issues on which we intend to position ourselves based on the skills of the laboratory.



Three major areas of scientific activity :