Research priorities for sustainability science

German Committee Future Earth (DKN) publishes position paper and calls for proposals for new working groups

It combines insights from global environmental change research and the environmental social sciences and humanities. This programmatic framework will form the basis of the future work program of the committee itself. Furthermore, it is hoped that it will motivate other scientists to engage across disciplinary boundaries with the manifold epistemological, theoretical, and methodological challenges of sustainability science.

This contribution addresses agents in science, science management, and science funding in a national and an international context. The paper has been developed over the past two years. It reflects discussions within the German Committee Future Earth in times of the COVID-19 pandemic and debates on the contents of the paper during the course of the German Sustainability Science Summit 2021.

Call for new working groups 2022

To strengthen sustainability research in Germany and to support scientists in the development of relevant research activities within sustainability science, the DKN is setting up new working groups. Please send your proposal for setting up a working group, either in German or in English, to the DKN secretariat by 01 April 2022. Successfully established working groups receive funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to finance three meetings. The maximum duration of a working group is about two years.

The German Committee Future Earth (DKN) is an independent scientific advisory body of the DFG and national contact point and platform for developments and activities within the international research program for global sustainability "Future Earth" and the "World Climate Research Programme" (WCRP). The DKN supports interdisciplinary, integrative sustainability research in a national and international context. Since 2019, the DKN is chaired by Daniela Jacob and the DKN Secretariat is hosted at GERICS.