Linking Knowledge with Action for Sustainable Development

Organized by William Clark, Pamela Matson and Nancy Dickson
April 3-4, 2008
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

Motivation
The world has substantial experience with systems of research, observations, innovation, assessment and decision support (or “knowledge systems”) that have been designed to foster goals of economic prosperity, human development, or environmental conservation.  Examples range from the international agricultural research system through the world’s campaigns against infectious diseases to efforts to reduce transboundary air pollution. But many international research and innovation efforts to support sustainable development have been initiated and developed in an ad hoc manner, learning little from relevant scholarship, analogous efforts in other fields, or reflection on their own experiences.  Reciprocally, scholarship on knowledge systems has not benefited from the reflective experience of program mangers in national and international R&D efforts relevant to sustainable development.  More generally, historical experience is only beginning to be critically examined to determine what reliable lessons it can offer contemporary efforts to build more effective knowledge systems for sustainability.  As a result, we know much less than we could about which kinds of knowledge systems work (and which do not) under what conditions.  Myths accumulate; blunders are repeated.  There is both a great need and a great deal of enthusiasm for systematically and critically comparing experience with knowledge systems across a wide range of sectors and regions in order to understand how such systems can be most effectively reformed and designed.  Numerous research efforts around the world, including a sustained push by the National Academies’ Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability, are beginning to generate a foundation for such understanding, and thus to promote practical interventions for better linking knowledge with action in pursuit of sustainability.  The goal of this Sackler Colloquium is to bring together some of the best of that research from around the world.

Themes
The Colloquium is organized around five major challenges to linking knowledge with action in support of sustainability that have been identified in recent work at the Academies.   Sessions focused on each of these challenges will summarize and discuss relevant research and practical experience from around the world.  An Overview session will provide perspective and context, while a closing Synthesis session will provide speakers and participants in the Colloquium with an opportunity to reflect on its implications for research and practice.

• Use-inspired Research: Informing R&D Priorities through Dialogues between Decision-makers and Scientists
• Mobilizing the Knowledge We Have:   Integrating Knowledge from Tradition, Practice, and Research
• Bridging the “Valleys of Death”: Building End-to-End Systems Linking Research, Development, and Deployment
• Learning from Experience: Designing Adaptive Systems that Link Knowledge with Action for Sustainability
• Who’s in Charge?  Managing Power and Interests in the Deployment of Science and Technology for Sustainable Development

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