Transnational shared common themes for environmental and sustainability research and innovation

Abstract

The Horizon Europe Coordination and Support Action CASRI – Collaborative Action coordinating and enhancing systemic, actionable and transversal Sustainability Research and Innovation – aims to strengthen the role of Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs) in the European Research Area (ERA). Together with key partners and stakeholder, CASRI fosters a more integrated, strategic, and practice-oriented research and innovation (R&I) agenda for Europe’s sustainability transitions. This report synthesizes and evaluates suggestions for environmental and sustainability R&I priori-ties, collected across 14 European national and regional contexts by the CASRI project. The aim is to identify relevant themes and potential key issues that address systemic, actionable, and transver-sal knowledge needs, taking into account societal relevance, the ability to contribute to grand chal-lenges, and future responsiveness. The CASRI project gathered expert views on knowledge needs and gaps, focusing on four prede-fined themes of environmental and sustainability R&I, and also welcoming new perspectives. In total, over 600 individual proposals for priorities were collected. This report analyses the stated demands and identifies key issues relevant beyond individual countries or stakeholder groups. Based on content analysis, key issues were formulated and sorted using the guiding principles of CASRI. This initial selection was further discussed and validated in an international expert workshop involving 60 participants of 47 different organisations. The following aspects relevant to the future CASRI R&I agenda are emphasized under the four CASRI predefined themes that organised the data collection: • “Resilient, net-zero, circular production systems”: This theme presents a broad range of knowledge needs with a greater emphasis on traditional (mission-oriented) R&I objectives, particularly focused on industrial ecosystems and innovation. Broader, public-oriented inno-vation needs are also significant and tend to focus on wider societal change, generally ori-ented towards equity and actor influence. Security of resource supply appears as an over-arching concern. • “Biodiversity and climate”: Although both areas are already well-established in science and policy, specific attention should be given to their intersectionality and scaling up. Key issues include data utilization, the governance of climate–biodiversity interactions, and the regula-tory and institutional frameworks for policy implementation. Ecological restoration and the resilience of soil, water, and forest ecosystems are also central concerns. • “Sustainable urbanisation”: This theme encompasses solutions to environmental and sus-tainability challenges in urban areas. It involves the integrated strategic coordination of di-verse actors and sectoral knowledge, adequate resources, and land-use and legal planning processes to pursue shared goals of climate adaptation, environmental resilience, and social justice. • “Nature- and environmentally friendly energy transition”: While the energy transition requires technological innovation, also transdisciplinary research and transformative action are needed. This includes social justice dimensions, as well as aspects of governance, social acceptance, environmental effects of energy infrastructure, land use, and scenario comparisons. Overall, there is a need for active social engagement to effectively balance ecological, economic, and social challenges. Several priorities were also presented outside or cross-cutting these four predefined themes. Key issues identified beyond these original themes included integrative assessments of trade-offs, syn-ergies, and risks, thereby emphasizing preparedness; the management of geopolitical and other conflicts; environmental and ecosystem health; the potential for scaling up experiments; and inno-vation diffusion. The need for policy-relevant understanding of transformative change and the role of the social sciences was also emphasized. Additionally, the reconfiguration of the economic system—highlighting overconsumption of natural resources, sufficiency, and justice—was brought forward. Overall, this report provides a comprehensive synthesis of shared transnational environmental and sustainability key issues. Simultaneously, it contextualises these key issues within the framework of current public priorities, such as security, democracy and participation, regulatory efficiency and competitiveness, and digitalisation. Consequently, it delivers the analytical foundation for selecting issues with strategic potential for European transnational collaboration. The findings will significantly inform the development of the CASRI Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda. Quelle: Bericht