Forskning för Agenda 2030

The report identifies significant knowledge gaps hindering the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and argues that research must play four roles: characterizing challenges, providing solutions, coordinating dialogue, and critically analyzing the goals. Using SDGs 12, 14, and 17 as examples, it highlights the need for more applied 'action research' and a deeper understanding of goal interactions and international spill-over effects. The authors propose a tiered approach to structural reform, ranging from incremental improvements in open data and communication to transformative changes such as funding research led by third countries and reorienting the innovation system away from incremental economic growth toward social and climate justice.

• Research for the 2030 Agenda should fulfill four distinct roles: characterizing and diagnosing sustainability problems, providing technical and social solutions, acting as a societal institution for dialogue and coordination, and critically analyzing the goals and the power structures they serve.
• The Sustainable Development Goals are not precisely defined and lack a single definition of sustainability, meaning their primary value is providing a 'common language' for sustainability issues rather than serving as strict criteria for prioritizing research.
• Research needs for the SDGs often stem from the scale of transformative change required rather than entirely new scientific questions, with a particular urgency for 'action research' to determine which measures work under different conditions.
• There is a critical need for new research and methodology to understand the 'indivisibility' of the agenda, specifically regarding interactions between goals, international spill-over effects, and the development of a post-2030 framework.
• For SDG 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production), research needs extend beyond the technical targets of the UN to include systemic issues, social norms, and the transition from a goods economy to a service economy.
• Research needs for SDG 14 (Life Below Water) include addressing knowledge gaps in climate effects, marine litter, and microplastics, as well as developing methods to include environmental impact in national and global economic calculations beyond GDP.
• Regarding SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), there is a need for critical research into the underlying assumptions of development models and the effectiveness of partnerships for the most marginalized groups.
• Incremental reforms to the current Swedish research system should include the creation of a national platform for visualizing environmental data and the implementation of an 'effect logic' to track how funded projects contribute to specific SDGs.
• Reorienting the system would require more coordinated funding across state agencies, private foundations, and industry, as well as increasing the requirement for projects to include international perspectives and expertise from third countries.
• Transformative changes would involve moving away from an innovation system focused on incremental efficiency and economic growth, instead prioritizing social inequalities, unemployment, and climate change, and allocating more funding to projects led and conducted in third countries.

APA

Persson, Å., Bell, L., Weitz, N., Chan, S., Maltais, A., Sturesson, A., & Sundin, A. (2018). Forskning för Agenda 2030. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-002559-forskning-for-agenda-20301.pdf

Chicago

Persson, Åsa, Linda Bell, Nina Weitz, Stefanie Chan, Aaron Maltais, Annie Sturesson, and Anneli Sundin. Forskning för Agenda 2030. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2018. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-002559-forskning-for-agenda-20301.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Persson |first1=Åsa |last2=Bell |first2=Linda |last3=Weitz |first3=Nina |last4=Chan |first4=Stefanie |last5=Maltais |first5=Aaron |last6=Sturesson |first6=Annie |last7=Sundin |first7=Anneli |title=Forskning för Agenda 2030 |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2018 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-002559-forskning-for-agenda-20301.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{persson2018forskning, author = {Persson, Åsa and Bell, Linda and Weitz, Nina and Chan, Stefanie and Maltais, Aaron and Sturesson, Annie and Sundin, Anneli}, title = {{Forskning för Agenda 2030}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2018}, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-002559-forskning-for-agenda-20301.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }