Grand Challenges of Sustainability Science Workshop
20-22 October 2006

Organizers
Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University

Location
Venice International University
San Servolo, Venice, Italy

Sponsor
Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea

Convenors
William Clark, Co-Director, Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University
John Holdren, President, American Association for the Advancement of Science and Professor, Harvard University
Robert Kates, Co-Chair, Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability

Please note: this conference is by invitation only.

The goals of the workshop are to: 1) to prepare an integrated sketch of the principal challenges of research, training, and capacity building facing the rapidly emerging field of sustainability science; and 2) to use that sketch to help encourage connections and synergies among a series of related initiatives linking science and technology with sustainability concerns that are now taking shape under the leadership of workshop participants. Questions to be addressed include:

Where are we now? What are the internationally accepted goals of sustainable development? What are the principal international R&D agendas now being pursued in support of efforts to achieve those goals?

What’s missing? What are the exceptional opportunities for additional or intensified R&D that could enable effective action on the ground to achieve priority goals of sustainable development over the next decade?

What should be taught? What kind of materials – textbooks? Training courses? Curricula? – are most needed to facilitate the training and professional development of the next generation of sustainability scientists?

What’s to be done? What sort of joint initiatives – among our own institutions and between institutions such as ours and governments, foundations, civil society and the private sector – are most needed to facilitate the knowledge creation, application and training for sustainable development that we have discussed in this workshop?

Contact Info
Alessandra Fornetti, Conference Coordinator, Venice International Univ, alessandra.fornetti@univiu.org

Elisa Carlotto, Conference Coordinator Assistant, Venice International Univ, elisa.carlotto@univiu.org, tel. +39 041 2719547

Nancy Dickson, Sustainability Science Program, Harvard Univ, nancy_dickson@harvard.edu
 

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Last revised 18 April 2007