CDE Director Peter Messerli represented Swiss science at this year’s United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York. The Forum is expected to provide political leadership, guidance, and recommendations on implementation and follow-up of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. One of the topics discussed at the Forum was the role of science in the implementation of Agenda 2030. Peter Messerli emphasized that science plays a central role in research on the interplay between the sustainable development goals. Possible conflicts and synergies must be revealed to show potential development paths and enable policy coherence: Messerli believes that sustainable development research can play a central role in this respect. Global networks such as Future Earth, which link pioneers of such research, provide important knowledge on societal transformation processes. These new forms of inter- and transdisciplinary research take on great importance in the search for possible development paths to sustainability. Science should also take responsibility in contributions to the Global Sustainable Development Reports, published every four years. The reports should be seen as a product of the comprehensive process between research and policy, which takes place at various levels.
Further information on the discussion: Link to UN Web TV "Science-policy interface: New ideas, insights and solutions" (see Peter Messerli at 1h 11')
