The feasibility and desirability of endless economic growth is increasingly being questioned by scholars and activists. While envisioning alternative economic models is key to assure the sustainability and wellbeing of present and future generations, few studies have analysed what might be the role of ‘innovation’ in a post-growth era. Innovating has become the imperative for the survival and expansion of any form of organisation. But this ‘innovate or die mania’ underpins assumptions – such as technological determinism and productivism - that neglect the socially constructed character of technological development, its politics and its capacity to enable just and equitable societies but also dystopian technocratic futures. This project posits that untangling innovation from growth is key to imagining a post-growth era. If growth is going to be unsustainable, we need new narratives for innovation that would accordingly also have to change and increase the scope of the innovation concept itself, beyond technology, into cultural and institutional change, and indeed social life and social order. Organizations – in particular capitalist enterprises - are the core of modern industrial societies but are also one of the places in which the discourse of growth is legitimised and constantly reproduced. However, they can also be the places in which people can start to build the capacity for developing alternatives to challenges the growth ideology. But how organizations would look like in a different paradigm, in a system that is not based on and doesn’t not rely on endless growth? Under which conditions STI without growth would be able to flourish? What levels of technological complexity can we reach in a non-growing economy? What policies, infrastructures and organizational forms are needed or are more likely to facilitate this new paradigm of STI? These are questions, rarely asked by innovation, management and organization scholars, that the proposed project will address.

Pioneer plant species native to tropical ultramafic areas can be useful tools for the restoration of ultramafic soils degraded by nickel mining activities. Casuarinaceae trees are well known for its capacity to grow on nutrient-poor areas. This is possible thanks to multiple adaptations, including the formation of actinorhizal symbioses with nitrogen-fixing Frankia actinobacteria. Members of the genera Gymnostoma and Ceuthostoma (both from Casuarinaceae) colonise degraded ultramafic soils and promote the recovery of soil fertility. However, they produce high amounts of slow-degrading litter which (among other effects) reduce the colonisation by other plant species. The project CASUABIOTA is intended to improve our knowledge of soil biota associated to Casuarinaceae from ultramafic areas of SE Asia. The project has two main objectives: 1) to advance our knowledge about Casuarinaceae-associated frankiae and its tolerance to nickel, and 2) to obtain insights about the composition of Casuarinaceae litter and the organisms involved in its degradation, with a special interest in earthworms and saprophytic fungi. To accomplish these objectives, a sampling campaign aimed at plants, litter, root nodules and earthworms will be performed in ultramafic areas from Sabah State (N of Borneo, Malaysia). Collected material will be subjected to different analyses (litter composition, earthworm barcoding, soil fungal metabarcoding) and two manipulative experiments on litter degradation will be performed on vermireactors and on mesocosms. Expected results include the identification of Ni tolerant Frankia strains, the assessment of litter effects on the composition of soil fungal and earthworm communities and the optimisation of a biological method to accelerate the degradation of Casuarinaceae litter. This knowledge will ease the use of Casuarinaceae for the restoration of tropical Ni-mine spoils.