A Model for Implementing Mission Science for Sustainability
This report proposes a model to set priorities for mission science for sustainability. Based on a co-design process, it details the core principles and institutional, governance and funding arrangements needed to accelerate our progress on the path towards sustainability.
International scientific collaboration is at the heart of innovative solutions with the potential for worldwide impact. But until now, sustainability science for has not been given the opportunity and resources to help advance long-term sustainable development at scale.
The strategy proposed flips the more traditional science model, allowing the agenda and priorities to be determined by regional communities and stakeholder needs, and engaging science in service to society in which science communities collaboratively design, produce, integrate, implement and evaluate potential pathways to achieve sustainability outcomes. It also aims to break down silos and radically increase regional capacity to understand and address nexus issues.
To achieve the above-mentioned goals, the report proposes the establishment of a globally funded and empowered network of regional Sustainability Hubs . Each Hub will serve as a boundary-spanning platform for mobilization, coordination and alignment of diverse relevant actors and existing initiatives to address regionally identified complex nexus sustainability challenges.
Based on these recommendations, the Global Commission on Science Missions for Sustainability (convened in December 2021 by the ISC to rise to the challenges posed by existential risks to humanity and the planet) has developed a new approach to support and carry out mission science to significantly accelerate humanity’s progress on the path towards sustainability. This approach developed in the report, Flipping the Science Model: A Roadmap to Science Missions for Sustainability, to be introduced at the 2023 UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) at the UN Headquarters in New York.