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Expansion of sustainability science needed for the SDGs

Nature Sustainability volume 2, pages 892–894 (2019)Cite this article

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Dominant research modes are not enough to guide the societal transformations necessary to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Researchers, practitioners, decision makers, funders and civil society should work together to achieve universally accessible and mutually beneficial sustainability science.

This is a decisive year for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Convening this week, the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) includes a quadrennial SDG summit under the auspices of the General Assembly. Here, the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR)1, prepared by an independent group of scientists, will be officially presented. It reviews progress and strives to chart ways ahead.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Peter Messerli

  2. Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Eun Mee Kim

  3. Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, IIASA, Vienna, Austria

    Wolfgang Lutz

  4. French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, Marseille, France

    Jean-Paul Moatti

  5. Sustainability Science Center, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Katherine Richardson

  6. Royal Scientific Society, Amman, Jordan

    Muhammad Saidam

  7. Institute for Sustainable Development, The University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica

    David Smith

  8. Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue

  9. CSIR Forestry Research Institute, Kumasi, Ghana

    Ernest Foli

  10. Center for Global Development, Washington DC, USA

    Amanda Glassman

  11. National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, Mexico City, Mexico

    Gonzalo Hernandez Licona

  12. National Development Planning Agency, Jakarta, Republic of Indonesia

    Endah Murniningtyas

  13. Institute of Environmental Engineering, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Jurgis Kazimieras Staniškis

  14. Earth and Life Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Jean-Pascal van Ypersele

  15. Environment Policy Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, Finland

    Eeva Furman

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  1. Peter Messerli
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  2. Eun Mee Kim
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  5. Katherine Richardson
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  6. Muhammad Saidam
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  7. David Smith
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  8. Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue
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  9. Ernest Foli
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  10. Amanda Glassman
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  11. Gonzalo Hernandez Licona
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  12. Endah Murniningtyas
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  13. Jurgis Kazimieras Staniškis
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  14. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele
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  15. Eeva Furman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eeva Furman.

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Messerli, P., Kim, E.M., Lutz, W. et al. Expansion of sustainability science needed for the SDGs. Nat Sustain 2, 892–894 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0394-z

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