14 February 2019: The Towards a Sustainable Earth (TaSE) research programme will support scientists from five countries on projects seeking to better understand the relationship between humans and their environment, to support achievement of the SDGs. The land-river interface, delta environments, and river basins as SDG “living laboratories” are among the focal areas of the selected research projects.

According to a press release issued by Cambridge Network, a multilateral call from the UK, India, China, Japan and Sweden has resulted in £4.3 million (approximately USD5.5 million) in funding for eight two-year, multi-disciplinary research projects to better understand human-environment interactions, which are “at the heart” of achieving the SDGs. The call involved the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Japanese Science and Technology Agency, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Indian Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Swedish research council Formas.

The research projects are taking place in the context of the TaSE research programme that seeks to: identify research and innovation in support of the SDGs; mobilize commitments to funding and action to enable the implementation of the 2030 Agenda; and initiate collaborations between and among international partners. The press release reports that each project involves stakeholders from multiple sectors and countries to co-design research agendas and co-produce research results. Funded projects should also help find comprehensive solutions to global challenges, and their outcomes are expected to be employed for advancing the SDGs.

The eight projects that were awarded funding focus on, inter alia: nature’s contribution to poverty alleviation, human wellbeing and the SDGs; opportunities and trade-offs between the SDGs for food, welfare and the environment in deltas; social-economic-environmental trade-offs in managing the land-river interface; and river basins as “living laboratories” for achieving the SDGs across national and sub-national scales. [Cambridge Network press release]