Dear GEP-ED members, We are inviting you to join us at the 2020 International SDG Research Symposium GLOBALGOALS2020, held 10-11 June 2020 in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
BACKGROUND In 2015, the international community adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets as part of a global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The ambition expressed in these goals is unprecedented; the Agenda aims at nothing less than ‘Transforming Our World’. But can this prominent example of global goal-setting, as a new central approach in global governance, help resolve the pressing challenges of economic development, poverty eradication, social justice, and global environmental protection? Nobody knows at this stage. While the United Nations and member states place great hopes on this novel strategy, there is little scientific knowledge on whether such global goals can live up to exceedingly high expectations. How can ‘global governance through goals’ be effective – and under which conditions? The 2020 SDG Research Symposium provides a forum for the exchange of cutting-edge research and policy studies on this question. The Symposium brings together a broad group of leading social scientists from universities and prominent think tanks for a first stocktaking of what we know about the actual impact of ‘governance through goals’. The SDG Research Symposium will not address sustainability governance as such but focus on assessing the effects of global goal-setting, with special emphasis on the Sustainable Development Goals as the premier and most comprehensive global goal-setting effort to-date. The SDG Research Symposium will address six broader research streams: (1) Implementation. To what extent have the Sustainable Development Goals been effective so far in achieving their stated objectives? Where are main areas of success or failure? And where can we attribute positive changes and progress to the agreement on the SDGs in 2015? (2) Integration. The Sustainable Development Goals are to align the efforts of public and private actors around their ambitious agenda, and to further the integration of governance instruments at global and national levels in support of the Goals. To what extent is such integration of governance around the 17 Goals in fact observable? Where are actors aligning their efforts, and to what extent is this attributable to the Goals that were adopted in 2015? (3) Inclusiveness. The Sustainable Development Goals follow an agenda of leaving ‘no one behind’ and shall advance the interests of the poorest and most vulnerable people. Increased inclusiveness of governance arrangements and processes is one of the key aspirations associated with the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, to what extent can we observe a better inclusion and support of poor and vulnerable communities within countries, and internationally of the Least Developed Countries? Did the promise of 2015 materialize in actual policies since then? (4) Integrity. The claim behind the Sustainable Development Goals is that they help align social justice with the protection of the life-supporting earth systems. Yet to what extent did the Sustainable Development Goals really advance planetary ecological integrity, especially in areas and policy fields that have so far only marginally been associated with ecological concerns? Where can we observe changes towards more planetary integrity in governance efforts that can be attributed to the SDGs? (5) Interlinkages. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals were designed to advance overall coherence in sustainability governance – yet often they seem to operate in silos. There might be trade-offs between some Goals, and actors might prefer one Goal over the other. Research into the interlinkages between these Goals is thus highly important to inform policy and provide evidence-based recommendations on how to resolve trade-offs, leverage synergies, and accelerate progress across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. (6) Indicators and Methods. Finally, the SDG Research Symposium will focus on the best suited methods to identify and trace impacts of the Sustainable Development Goals. We hope for extensive accounts from the humanities and qualitative social sciences approaches, including discursive and interpretative work on the role that the Sustainable Development Goals could play so far. We also invite scholars who focus on quantitative work on the Sustainable Development Goals, including social network analysis and integrated assessment models. We especially seek to bring quantitative and qualitative work in conversation, while creating enough space for both meta approaches to further improve and fine-tune their methodological tool boxes. The 2020 SDG Research Symposium invites contributions from all disciplines and intellectual traditions. We plan to focus on research on the impacts and politics of global goal-setting as a mode of global and national governance – and here on the Sustainable Development Goals in particular. We are less interested, at this symposium, in more general studies on larger questions of global sustainability with no specific reference to the Sustainable Development Goals as governance mechanism. Instead, we especially focus on current research that explores the impacts of global goal-setting as a distinct mechanism of global and national policy-making – and here on the Sustainable Development Goals in particular. The 2020 SDG Research Symposium is hosted by Utrecht University’s Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development and co-hosted by several international research institutions and think tanks, including the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, and the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme. The Symposium is endorsed by the Earth System Governance Project, the leading global research network in this field. Core financial and logistical support is provided by the project GlobalGoals—Global Governance through Goals: Assessing and Explaining the Steering Effects of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, supported by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. ORGANIZATION Co-chairs * Professor Frank Biermann, director, GlobalGoals Project, Utrecht University * Dr Thomas Hickmann, GlobalGoals Project, Utrecht University * Dr Carole-Anne Sénit, GlobalGoals Project, Utrecht University International Steering Committee and Keynote Speakers * Professor Måns Nilsson, director, Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden * Sheila Oparaocha, international coordinator, ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy * Professor Rob Raven, research director, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University, Australia * Dr Imme Scholz, acting director, German Development Institute, Germany * Dr Michelle Scobie, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago; former steering committee member, Earth System Governance Project * Dr Sébastien Treyer, director, Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), France [Additional steering committee members and keynote speakers will be announced soon.] Co-hosting Institutions * Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University * Stockholm Environment Institute * Sussex Sustainability Research Programme, University of Sussex Global Communication and Outreach * Charlotte Ballard, Utrecht University ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) CONFERENCE DETAILS The 2020 SDG Research Symposium GLOBALGOALS2020 will be held on 10-11 June 2020, in the run-up to the meeting of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development held in New York in early to mid-July. The symposium will consist of two full days of panels and plenaries, including a conference dinner on the first day. On the day before the symposium, participants will have the opportunity to follow a tour of Utrecht with several innovative sustainability projects (such as Utrecht as a biking city), and to engage with the SDG-teams in the city and provincial governments in Utrecht. The symposium will produce research outputs that will be widely disseminated within and beyond academia, including journal special issues on ‘governance through goals’ and a high-profile Science Statement to be presented during a joint side event at the 2020 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York, followed by a high-level publication. ABSTRACT SUBMISSION Please submit your abstract at https://globalgoalsproject.eu/globalgoals2020/call/ and follow the instructions on that site. DEADLINE: The call for papers closes on 15 December 2019. CONFERENCE REGISTRATION You can register for the conference starting 1 January 2020 via https://globalgoalsproject.eu/globalgoals2020/registration/. The reduced Early Bird Registration Fee will apply until 1 February 2020. For further information and questions, please contact globalgoals(at)uu.nl<mailto:[email protected]>. For media and interview requests, please contact directly the project’s communication officer, Charlotte Ballard, at c.a.c.ballard(at)uu.nl<mailto:[email protected]>. We look forward to welcoming you in Utrecht in June 2020. With best regards, Frank Biermann, Thomas Hickmann and Carole-Anne Sénit Co-chairs, 2020 SDG Research Symposium GLOBALGOALS2020 www.globalgoalsproject.eu<http://www.globalgoalsproject.eu> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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