Ecology, technology and innovation towards sustainability: challenges and perspectives in Mexico

In Mexico and in the world, the incorporation of the scientific community (among them ecologists) to the generation of knowledge that contributes to solving the serious environmental problems, and advancing towards the sustainability, requires a different research vision. Moreover, innovative tools are needed to couple the work of the scientific community with the rest of the society. Ecologists are challenged to become innovators and creators of new models, collaborative processes, methods and research tools, basic and applied, in topics such as agriculture, forestry, livestock and the use of natural resources. To meet this challenge, ecologists in Mexico need to amalgamate their work with other academic and non-academic actors to jointly promote environmental improvement processes with social benefits. This contribution examines challenges and perspectives of ecotechnological innovation in Mexico. We suggest to foster the research work in this field in laboratories without walls, in which flexible groups of actors design, test, and evaluate ecotechnological innovations that respond to specific local and regional socio-ecological and environmental problems. (C) 2017 Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Instituto de Biologia.