Our research framework

HUMAN SOCIETIES are reliant on a healthy and resilient biosphere providing suitable living conditions. At the same time, human actions are a major force in shaping the dynamics of the biosphere and the broader earth system. Social conditions, health, culture, democracy, power, justice, equality, matters of security and ultimately survival are interwoven with the earth system and its thin biosphere in a complex interplay of local, regional and worldwide dependencies. It is an intertwined system of people and planet.

Our core focus is to advance research in the frontier of biosphere-based sustainability science, applying a socialecological approach and resilience thinking. The approach that the SRC takes – that humans are part of the biosphere – informs and guides our research, enabling cohesion, unity of purpose and the distillation and synthesis of diverse theories, methods and data. Inductive and deductive work, practice and theory continuously interact. SRC’s organisational design is to frame creativity through the biosphere-based approach, guiding and defining a problem space in which creativity and innovation are encouraged to flourish. It involves developing and implementing research strategies, organisational structures and team-building processes that enable, support and stimulate creativity and cutting-edge research, ranging from disciplinary to interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary. Significant time is devoted to encouraging interaction and to stimulating sharing of ideas at the frontier of sustainability science and resilience thinking.

Our research aims at capturing significant patterns and processes of the Anthropocene, using complex adaptive systems and resilience thinking as core perspectives, developing theory and methods, and experimenting and exploring transdisciplinarity for biosphere stewardship and transformations towards sustainability. The research topics

PHOTO: C. HELANDER/AZOTE

are diverse but tend to be anchored in systems approaches and around food systems, the ocean, urbanisation and development challenges.

Research for change Our curiosity-founded research is driven by an interest to identify challenges as well as opportunities for change. This is at the heart of the planetary boundaries framework, which in 2019 celebrated its 10th anniversary. With over 3,600 citations to date, the original Nature article has sparked excitement across science, policy and business. Downscaling or translating the boundaries has been undertaken by several countries and regions – including the EU, China and Germany – while several companies are looking at ways to adapt the framework to their businesses.

Research by the SRC was essential in another more recent international effort: the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet and Health. It demonstrates how diet and food production can radically change to improve health and avoid damage to the planet. Inevitably, the report generated both excitement and controversy (particularly for its call to drastically reduce meat consumption) and became one of the most discussed science articles of the year, according to Altmetric, a data science company.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals, agreed by world leaders in 2015, are increasingly influencing policies and corporate strategies. In the midst of calls to listen to science, our research is asked for. When Nature, one of the world’s most important scientific journals, celebrated its 150th anniversary, it invited centre researchers to contribute with their perspectives on how humans – through farming, forestry and fisheries – are changing the anatomy of our biosphere.

Our findings on resilience during the last decade illustrate how crises lead to new opportunities, the mobilisation of diverse actors and stimulate bold vision. 2019 may enter history as the year when environmental crises became a mainstream topic. Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the dire state of our planet spurred growing calls for political and corporate leaders to listen to science. Our executive education on resilience thinking and multiple collaborative dialogues at different scales continue to connect CEOs and board members of large companies, as well as innovative entrepreneurs from small and medium business enterprises, with sustainability scientists and experts.

The centre is thriving under its new leadership and is staying busy with its multiple forms of collaborative engagements. We are particularly excited about our new international scientific advisory council, established to provide advice on our scientific direction of the coming decade. There is much more work to do.