Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Governance of Sociotechnical Transformations

全球环境变化、环境退化和资源压力给世界各国社会造成了前所未有的局面。由于在应对这些挑战方面进展缓慢，人们越来越强调需要超越对渐进式变革的研究和鼓励。应对可持续性相关挑战的传统知识和能力建设产生的积极影响有限；因此，越来越需要更多的基本知识，了解社会之间以及社会与自然环境之间的相互作用方式的变化。社会转型是指深刻而持久的系统性变化，通常涉及社会、文化、技术、政治、经济和环境进程。需要一项全面和协调一致的研究倡议，以促进向可持续性转变的研究，并促进对环境和社会挑战的新型解决办法。该奖项支持美国研究人员参加由19个国家通过贝尔蒙特论坛- NORFACE-ISSC倡议竞争性选择的项目。可持续发展转型（T2S）是一项多边倡议，旨在支持有助于重组广泛的可持续发展研究领域的研究项目。知识的共同生产和研究问题的制定被认为对社会转型过程至关重要，每个项目都有利益相关者或社区合作伙伴参与。该倡议旨在发展社会所需的基本知识，以帮助发展向可持续发展的转变，这是全世界重大的社会关切，与学术界和利益攸关方都有很大关系。T2S计划旨在通过培养跨国界、跨学科、跨从业者和社会伙伴的持久研究合作，建立能力，克服碎片化，并对社会和研究领域产生持久影响。这包括促进与世界上不经常参与大规模国际研究工作的部分地区，特别是低收入和中等收入国家开展新的研究合作。该奖项提供的资金将用于支持美国参与者在由至少三个参与国的合作伙伴组成的联盟中进行合作，并将自然科学家、社会科学家和研究用户（如公民社会、非政府组织和工业界）聚集在一起。其他国家的参与者通过其国家资助组织获得资助。该项目将与五个国家（德国、印度、肯尼亚、英国和美国）的主要利益相关者团体合作，重点关注与可持续发展至关重要的三个领域的转型进程：能源系统、农业和城市数字基础设施。预期的结果将展示在可选途径中可行的选择，以实现朝向可持续发展的社会进步转型，产生关于如何在当地地球系统参数和治理结构中最好地实施这种转型的直接实际重要性的见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Global environmental change, environmental degradation and resource pressures have created unprecedented situations for societies worldwide. The slow progress on addressing these challenges has led to increasing emphasis on the need to go beyond the study and encouragement of incremental change. Conventional knowledge and capacity building to tackle the challenges associated with sustainability have had limited positive impacts; consequently, there is growing need for more fundamental knowledge on how transformations in the way societies interact both with each other and with the natural environment. Societal transformations refer to profound and enduring systemic changes that typically involve social, cultural, technological, political, economic and environmental processes. A comprehensive and concerted research initiative is needed that can boost research on transformations to sustainability and catalyze new kinds of solutions to environmental and social challenges. This award supports U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 19-country initiative through the Belmont Forum- NORFACE-ISSC. Transformations to Sustainability (T2S) is a multilateral initiative designed to support research projects that will contribute to re-structuring the broad field of sustainability research. Co-production of knowledge and research problem formulation is considered to be critical to the process of societal transformation and each project engages stakeholders or community-based partners. The initiative seeks to develop the fundamental knowledge societies require to help develop transformations to sustainability which are of significant social concern throughout the world and of great relevance to both academics and stakeholders. The T2S program aims to build capacity, overcome fragmentation and have a lasting impact on both society and the research landscape by cultivating durable research collaboration across multiple borders, disciplinary boundaries, and with practitioners and societal partners. This includes facilitating the development of new research collaborations with parts of the world which are not often involved in large-scale international research efforts, notably low- and middle-income countries. The funds provided in this award will be used to support U.S. participants to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., civil society, NGOs, and industry). Participants from other countries are funded through their national funding organizations. This project will focus on transformation processes in three areas of crucial relevance to sustainable development: energy systems, agriculture, and urban digital infrastructures across five nations (Germany, India, Kenya, UK, US), in cooperation with key stake-holder groups from each nation. The expected outcomes will demonstrate feasible choices among alternative pathways for enacting socially progressive transformations towards sustainability, producing insights of immediate practical importance regarding how such transformations can best be implemented within the local earth system parameters and governance structures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.