With this special issue, the MRD editorial team and the organizers of the International Mountain Conference 2025 (IMC2025) aim to feature the most interesting, innovative, or thought-provoking contributions from recent research collaborations for sustainable mountain futures slated for presentation at IMC2025.

Partnership-based studies, comparative initiatives, synthesis studies, transdisciplinary research efforts, and other types of collaborative research are needed now, more than ever, to contribute to sustainability pathways and initiatives for mountain areas. Indeed, tackling the current unprecedented changes that affect mountain systems and communities—such as climate change, socioeconomic shifts, and geopolitical crises—requires the best available knowledge, including that emerging from different disciplines, geographic and cultural perspectives, and experiences. Research collaborations can help give a greater voice to groups traditionally underrepresented in science, such as researchers from the global South and non-English speakers, the youth, and inhabitants of remote mountain regions, particularly Indigenous peoples.

Around 1000 researchers are expected to gather in September 2025 in Innsbruck, Austria, at IMC2025. Experts from different disciplines and all regions of the world will present and exchange their latest research on mountain-related issues in over 150 sessions and workshops. The key goals of the conference are to synthesize and enhance our understanding of mountain systems and communities, in particular their responses and resilience to global change. A diversity of session formats will promote cross- and transdisciplinary exchanges and interactions among participants.

For the 3 peer-reviewed sections of this special issue, we invite contributions that draw on collaborative research slated for presentation at IMC2025 or that are expected to emerge from collective efforts at the conference. We welcome pieces that were or will be coproduced by researchers representing different mountain regions of the world and/or different types of knowledge (ie diverse scientific disciplines, but also knowledge from practitioners, policymakers, Indigenous Peoples, and local mountain communities).

MountainDevelopment (transformation knowledge): Papers should present lessons learned from the systematic evaluation of development interventions, local practices, and policy efforts, or insights from transdisciplinary and practice-oriented research. They can also include reflexive analyses of collaborative inter- or transdisciplinary research processes. Authors are invited not only to discuss successes but also to reflect on lessons learned from challenging experiences.

MountainResearch (systems knowledge): Papers should present empirical research or meta-analyses focusing on social and/or environmental change dynamics and their impacts on mountain systems and communities. Synthesis papers and comparative studies are especially welcome.

MountainAgenda (target knowledge): Papers should propose agendas and priorities for future policies, interventions, or research, with a focus on promoting sustainable mountain futures. The agendas must be based on a sound analysis of current thinking that results either from a rigorous and in-depth literature review or from a systematic stakeholder process in the respective field.

Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel, Brigitte Portner, and Susanne Wymann von Dach (Associate Editors, MRD),
with Wolfgang Gurgiser, Stefan Mayr, Fabian Drenkhan, and Stefan Schneiderbauer (Guest Editors, IMC2025)
March 2025

Submission details

• Email a short notice of intent (including a working title, 2–3 sentences on the content, and the journal section to which you intend to submit the paper) to mrd-journal.cde@unibe.ch by 15 June 2025.
• Submit your full paper by 15 October 2025 using MRD’s online submission platform.
• The issue is scheduled for completion in November 2026; articles will be published on a rolling basis, as soon as they are ready.
• Before submitting, please read our guidelines for authors at https://www.mrd-journal.org/for-authors/.
• For more information on the journal, see https://www.mrd-journal.org/.
• As a not-for-profit open access journal, MRD charges authors a publication fee to offset part of its production costs: https://www.mrd-journal.org/about/publication-fee-policy/. Authors who have insufficient funding to cover the fee may apply for a partial or full waiver; limited support for waivers will be available from the organizers of IMC2025 (Research Area “Mountain Regions,” University of Innsbruck).