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Parallel Sessions
This AGS meeting is designed to engage leaders in industry, government, and civil society in building well-informed, action-oriented partnerships with academic researchers and educators to advance progress toward sustainability. The following notes have been prepared to facilitate your choice of parallel session in which to participate as well as to provide material to lay the ground for discussions. Our aim is to solicit specific recommendations for the AGS to take into consideration as it develops future work plans, especially in conjunction with the implementation of AGS flagship projects and curriculum development activities.
Time is of the essence. International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka put the challenge bluntly. “The primary scarcity facing the planet is not natural resources, or money, but time. Action and decisions,” he stressed, “should be taken now.” Thus, we welcome your participation in these essential meeting components and look forward to working with you in the future to implement the recommendations that are generated in the brainstorming sessions and throughout the AGS meeting.
Parallel Sessions:
Deploying Results of Sustainability Research in Society: Strategies for Success
Tuesday, January 29th
Every societal sector—government, business and industry, public interest, and academic—has a role to play in moving society toward more sustainable development pathways than those we are on today. In order to act effectively, each of those sectors must have access to the most up to date scientific and technological knowledge as well as methodological insights. Such knowledge and insights are present in first-rate research universities today. Yet, the means to access them are not always clear. Scholarly journals, professional conferences, government hearings on specific issues, and classroom and experiential education are traditional platforms for knowledge sharing. But the record of deployment of research results is slim.
The parallel sessions will focus on means to overcome the obstacles to such deployment, action, and educational innovation. Specifically, participants will be asked to share experiences and brainstorm new ways in which researchers and educators in the academic community can work with representatives of these various sectors to quickly move knowledge out of the university and into the public arena where it can best be applied. In each of three sessions, a representative of one of the societal sectors will be asked to identify mechanisms or partnerships with the academic community that have worked well in the past and how they can be improved. A university moderator will offer insights from the academic experience. The participants will then be asked to brainstorm ways in which these communication channels can be improved to support informed timely, effective action. Each of three parallel groups will focus on a specific sector:
Group A: Business and Industry: Joint research, strategic partnerships, frequent interactions with specific talent. These are some of the ways in which business and industry have worked together to generate knowledge for sustainability. What are the most effective channels for timely access to objective scientific results? Many examples will have been presented in the plenary sessions leading up to this brainstorming session. Given the apparent impasse in moving toward sustainability, the challenge is to identify what the obstacles to the deployment of this knowledge are. The need for smarter, greener technologies now is clear. How can this knowledge be mobilized?
Moderator: Sarah Slaughter, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Discussant:
- Richard Sears, Vice President, Academia for Shell and Visiting Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Group B: Government and policy: What are the challenges to governments at all levels to set policies that favor more sustainable pathways? How can universities support the policy community in fulfilling this role? What are the challenges and opportunities for government/s to seed research for sustainability? Policy steps that will mobilize the market in more sustainable directions than we are now following are well known and widely discussed. Yet, as in other sectors, there appear to be overwhelming barriers to their implementation. What are these obstacles and what steps can research universities take to help overcome them?
Moderator: Renate Schubert, Institute for Environmental Decisions (IED), Chair of Economics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich
Discussants:
- John Bolduc, Environmental Planner, Community Development Department, City of Cambridge
- Greg Watson, Vice President for Sustainable Development and Renewable Energy, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
Group C: NGO/public interest sector: NGOs play a vital role in educating the public on issues that directly affect the public interest. Behavioral change at every level from the individual to the State is essential for a sustainable future. Beyond that, NGOs often act as pressure groups in the public interest to influence policy and business decisions. What are the priorities for such education and lobbying today in terms of sustainability? Is there an advocacy role for universities in meeting the challenge of sustainability? How can research universities best support public education in this realm?
Moderator: Peter Edwards, Plant Ecology, Institute of Integrative Biology Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich
Discussants:
- Praveen K. Amar, Director, Science and Polisy, NESCAUM
- Katja Brundiers, Managing Director, seed sustainability
- Timothy Prestero, CEO, Design that Matters
