The Belfer Center serves as the secretariat for the international Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability, which seeks to enhance the contribution of knowledge to environmentally sustainable human development around the world.
The Initiative aims to make significant progress toward three broad and interrelated goals: expanding and deepening the research and development agenda of S&T for sustainability; strengthening the infrastructure and capacity for conducting and applying S&T for sustainability; and connecting science and policy more effectively in pursuit of a transition toward sustainability.
In pursuit of these goals, the Initiative has run a series of regional workshops— in Abuja, Bonn, Cambridge, Chiang Mai, Ottawa, Santiago, and Trieste— that have explored scientific questions and research strategies relevant to sustainable development in the regions.
A synthesis of findings from the Initiative plus parallel activities organized by the International Council for Science and the Third World Academy of Science will be prepared at a workshop in Mexico City in May 2002 and channeled into the preparations for the upcoming UN World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Another activity of the Initiative is its web-based Forum on Science and Technology for Sustainability. The Forum seeks to facilitate information exchange and discussion among the growing and diverse group of individuals, institutions, and networks engaged in the field of science and technology for sustainability.
Many BCSIA members involved with the Initiative are also participants in the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program, which seeks to foster the design and evaluation of strategies with which the next generation of national and international global environmental change programs might more effectively integrate and support its research, assessment and decision-support activities.
BCSIA people involved in the sustainability efforts include William Clark, John Holdren, Calestous Juma, Henry Lee, Nancy Dickson, Robert Frosch, Robert Corell, Michael Hall, and Ian Bowles.
http://sustainabilityscience.org