This award will provide support to help establish a secretariat for the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability. The ?Alliance? is a high-level body composed of leaders of the leaders of international organizations committed to finding solutions to the world?s most pressing questions about the future sustainability of the planet. These organizations include composed of representatives from the ISSC, ICSU, UN, UNEP, UNU, and WMO (as an observer). The Alliance works to ensure that the results of multi-disciplinary research are accessible to decision makers concerned with the sustainability of the planet. The Alliance seeks to foster unprecedented collaboration between the natural, social, economic, engineering, and human sciences, the Alliance will contribute to the creation of creative, bold, and integrated solutions for global sustainability.
The seed funding will be used to support the work of the secretariat, which will provide: 1. A platform for expanding the Alliance, including creation of the Alliance Forum, which extends the Alliance to the global business community. 2. A means for Alliance members to meet and create a strategic plan for the Alliance. 3. A visible presence for the Alliance through development of communications materials and strategies.
The Alliance secretariat will help the Alliance fulfill its mission to drive and facilitate the co-design, co-production and co-delivery of knowledge with relevant stakeholders in order to address and create solution pathways for global sustainability problems. The first major activity of the Alliance is the establishment of ?Future Earth?, a 10-year initiative on Earth System research for global sustainability. This initiative will bring together and build on the strengths of existing international global environmental change program and incorporates the outcomes of recent visioning and agenda-setting processes led by the Alliance members.
The 2014 Future Earth Forum Summary of a Meeting and Next Steps Tim Killeen, Chair of the Future Earth Forum Adam Costello, Manager, Future Earth Forum Secretariat 2014 Future Earth Forum The Future Earth Forum (Forum), a yearly event, is an initiative of The Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability (Alliance). The Forum is designed to support the Alliance’s flagship initiative, Future Earth. The first Future Earth Forum was held on September 24, 2014 at the State University of New York Global Center in Manhattan, New York City, immediately following the United Nations Climate Summit on September 23, 2014. The Forum focused on bringing together key leaders from science, industry, business, finance, media, and representative from non-for profits and civil society to discuss common needs and approaches with a thematic emphasis on managing "systemic risk" and a goal to generate actionable research and implementable solutions. Most of the impacts of the Forum fall within the category of broader impacts as they deal with questions of how to generate and use science to benefit society (as can be seen throughout this report). However, through these discussions Forum attendees are generating new knowledge related to how multi-stakeholders, so often isolated in their "silos" of expertise or interest, work with eachother to manage complex and wicked sustianability issues. Matching Needs and Capabilities The event was designed as a forum where science listens and responds to requirements stemming from society at large, leading towards the co-production of the necessary knowledge for the future. The Forum’s dynamic first intervention was made by Peter Bakker who discussed the need for new knowledge generation for businesses worldwide. After this "call to arms" from the business community Frans Berkhout described the capabilities of the "huge international scientific efforts" to date and pointed out some failings. A clear alignment of common interests emerged from the ensuing discussion. Peter Bakker’s framing: Needs of businesses Frans Berkhout’s framing: Capabilities of Science Communicate best possible facts Generate fundamental, breakthrough research (new energy sources) Find bridge between science, business, and civil society (risk) Produce short analyses that business people can read Drive solutions that scale behavioral change Communicate science Do frontier science Engage policy in science Inform scientific funding agenda Build scientific capacity Sustainability, Systemic Risk, and the Science Agenda The next discussion section was moderated by Scott Williams and featured Peter Bakker, Johan Rockström, Rowan Douglas and Molly Jahn, and focused on systemic risk as a natural and "safe" convening place for the science-society dialog and co-design. During the ensuing discussion a clear consensus emerged that Future Earth needed to step up to an entirely new challenge: that of creating a meta-community to build the knowledge base to address global and regional systemic risks, without falling into the trap of crossing "red lines" of unethical or non-rigorous scientific work. Messaging a Response to Global Environmental Challenges This section was expertly moderated by Andrew Revkin and involved Porter Bibb, Jordan Peterson, and Marcus Ribeiro. All speakers agreed that a major change in communications strategy was required for Future Earth to fulfil its potential. In the discussion there emerged the concept of pairing the Future Earth "Brain Trust" with a "Do-Trust", exciting the public with a solutions oriented action agenda. In the ensuing discussion, there was emphasis placed on boundary navigation, dealing with such questions as: Where in the value chain of basic research to applied solutions to social action does Future Earth belong – and where should it not venture? What tone, channels, and modalities should be used in the communication strategy – this latter question encapsulated by the comment "serious versus spectacular"? What is Needed? What can Science Offer? Amy Luers expertly moderated a full discussion on the specifics of what a co-design structure for Future Earth should look like. She posed several critical questions, including: 1) How do we create and sustain an effective co-design process?; 2) What would we expect to emerge from this unprecedented process? And 3) How do we sustain community engagement? Mark Stafford Smith followed up in leading the Forum discussion on several key issues including how should Future Earth link most effectively with the new Sustainability Development Goals (SDG’s)? John Schellnhuber followed these discussion with a helpful outline of the key role of narratives. What comes next? The first Future Earth Forum was a resounding success and has already led to important new partnerships and a broader engagement with key leaders from the international business, finance, media, non-profit and civil society sectors. Considering the success of the 2014 Future Earth Forum, the second Future Earth Forum is being planned for 2015 following the post 2015 Sustainable Development Goal Meetings.
