It is increasingly evident that the usual paths of development are not sustainable, because of its inadequacy to satisfy the social and economic development needs of thousands of millions of people, as well as the dangers posed to environmental resources and life support systems. In some cases, the impacts of human activities have reached proportions that bring the planet to an unprecedented state. However, many positive developments for society have taken place at the same time. Health and education improvements, gains in life expectancy and well-being standards, better opportunities to share information, and environmental remediation in many locations are only some examples.

Science and technology have been important forces behind both positive and negative tendencies of development. Although S&T cannot achieve by itself the goal of better sustainability, as it is the people who have to decide whether and how to use the information and the knowledge it produces, it is essential to provide options and inform the decisions that allow society to follow the most sustainable path. In doing so, however, it is important to examine closely the manner in which social institutions, processes and values shape the research and development priorities, and the conditions for collecting its potential benefits.

In 2003 the consortium formed by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), the Science and Technology Initiative for Sustainability (ISTS), and The Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), established an ad hoc Advisory Group to study the ways in which an association between international organizations could help integrate a wider set of perspectives in the S&T communities, and how it could contribute with these communities not only to generate new knowledge but also to implement robust solutions to the most pressing challenges of society. In its recently published final report (Harnessing Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development, available at secretariat@icsu.org), the Advisory Group presents their points of view about the guiding principles behind the efforts to link S&T with sustainable development. A conceptual framework is presented to understand the relations between the different kinds of activities and groups of interest involved in these efforts, emphasizing the need to look at the creation of new scientific information and technical capacities as part of an experimental social process where producers and final users of knowledge interact so as to identify R&D priorities and to translate this knowledge into actions in the real world.

A set of initial priorities is suggested for matters where better scientific understanding and technical capacities are critical. This includes four vast themes: resilience and vulnerability of socio-ecological systems, governance institutions for sustainable development, sustainable production and consumption, and the role of behavior, cultures and values. Many existing R&D programs already approach these questions, and the report does not intend to reinvent existing knowledge. It tries to increase the efforts through focalized research, with systems oriented not only to overcome the distance between natural sciences, social sciences and engineering, but also to integrate the ‘formal’ R&D efforts with the knowledge and innovation at the bases of society.

The international scientific organizations can contribute in numerous ways to the development of new R&D efforts, and help increase the capacity of all nations to be involved in these efforts. This includes larger mutual support in existing activities, and active contributions to new efforts such as those from the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. It is suggested, nevertheless, that a key role for the consortium’s organizations, acting as individual entities or in formal association, would be to create a permanent mechanism to summon dialogues between natural and social scientists, engineers and the wide gamut of social actors with a potential to use new scientific and technical information to face sustainable development. The purpose of these dialogues is to exchange information and perspectives, and to develop a mutual agreement about priorities for future R&D efforts. This should be a long-term process that evolves in time, in response to new inputs and changing needs. The Multi-Actors Dialogue process that takes place in the meetings of the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development could provide an excellent platform to build such efforts. In a longer term, it could become a high profile activity that would attract large public interest, seen as a central axis of knowledge, leadership and exchange of new ideas in the global community.

Hebe Vessuri

Departamento de Estudio de la Ciencia

IVIC, Venezuela