European Science for Sustainability – Achievements and Challenges February 27 – March 2, 2002 Walberberg, Germany

The Walberberg Meeting Organised by IHDP (Sylvia Karlsson) Organising Committee (Jäger, Jaeger, Cramer, Karlsson, Munda, Svedin) Funded by German Federal Ministry for Education and Research Participants: ~20

The European Context Strong „policy push“ within the EU 6th Framework Programme (EU Parliament recently approved budget of 16,720 million Euros) „Networks of Excellence“ (larger, long- term projects)

European Experience Pattern of non-cumulative research Participatory Approaches

The Walberberg Themes Developing an empirical basis for Sustainability Science Designing a European research project on Sustainability Science

Developing the Empirical Basis Detecting „seeds of change“ Well-documented observations of transitions (starting points, drivers of change, patterns of change) Rapid Start – meta-analysis of patterns of sustainability using historical examples and published case studies (focus on energy sysems, water and land use)

Long-term Strategy Health, water, biodiversity and land use Remote sensing, ground-based and socio- economic data Combining qualitative and quantitative information „learning by doing“

Designing a European Research Project Ambitious initiative to explore complex relations between food consumption/production systems and transitions to sustainability Case studies (examples listed in the report) Investigating cross-scale linkages

Challenges include..... Developing a process Long-term stable funding Peer review process Participation of young researchers

Moving Forward Linking knowledge and action (including education specialists, media, broader stakeholder community) The EU 6th Framework Programme (letter of interest)