Contribute to our work

Our approach builds on working across disciplines and sectors in science, policy, business and beyond. We are not only a producer of scientific results and disseminator of knowledge – we are also a convener of change.

We have a long history of helping to navigate the unknown and bringing together people for change. We are looking for additional funding partners interested in helping us advance our mission and vision.

Long-term flexible funding has proven critical for our productivity, creativity, and ability to take scientific risks, thereby breaking new grounds in science and impact.

Principles for funded collaborations

• We develop novel and applied science, and find ways to engage in change towards sustainability for all

• The most innovative science that contributes to change is characterized by intellectual freedom and diverse teams that collaborate over multiple years.

• We have learnt that the free exchange of knowledge and ideas to create, share and engage others in the best possible science

• We value our scientific independence and credibility. This requires space to be explorative in the questions we ask and how we ask them.

Strategic focus

The next decades will decide peoples' future on Earth. In combination with our new vision and mission, we have reconfigured our research structure around a series of emerging research frontiers:

1. The Anthropocene: what it means when humans shape every aspect of our planet

2. Food: the prerequisites and pathways to sustainable and resilience food systems

3. Ocean: contributing to a sustainable and equitable future for the ocean

4. Complex adaptive systems: understanding change, diversity and emergence

5. Stewardship and transformation: exploring diverse trajectories towards sustainable futures

6. Development: sustainable development for all in the Anthropocene

Our values

Collaborations require trust, time and personal relationships, making it possible to engage in collaborative learning and an exchange of ideas that may not yet be developed, in arenas that do not yet exist. All with one main purpose: to produce good sustainability science. Our science and the questions we ask originate from our curiosity. When that curiosity is shared with partners, and we can explore new things together, we often find surprisingly new approaches to old problems. Our science can influence action in the real world, in part because we have the freedom to explore novelty.