SDG Workshop, Global Challenges University Alliance

Life Science Universities and the UN Sustainable Development Goals The world is facing numerous and severe challenges. More than 800 million people globally live in extreme poverty and are facing hunger. More than half of the land used for agriculture is degraded thereby affecting 1.5 billion people globally. Climate change affects livelihoods all over the world and puts severe threats to survival in many areas. Inequity increases and causes losses of social coherence leading to an increase in conflicts and contributing to multiple crisis of democracy and governance. In order to address these multiple challenges, the resolution “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) presented in this agenda break new ground in several ways: probably the strongest paradigm shift is that they are valid for all countries. This reflects a diffusion of “old” boundaries between the Global South which is to be developed and the global North which sets the model for development. It acknowledges new but often prominent boundaries between both, rich and poor countries but also and increasingly between rich and poor fractions of society within countries. The SDGs are also highly encompassing in their 17 goals and 169 targets which are structured along the broad topics of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. Workshop objectives The workshop offers opportunities for sharing best practice examples in addressing the SDGs in political and societal action, in teaching and in research, for discussing the specific role of life science Universities for contributing to reaching the SDGs by their integration of socio-economic, ecological and technical aspects of land use and food chains and for sketching a way forward in fulfilling the claims of society. With the workshop, we aim at (1) adopting a position paper of GCUA towards fulfilling the SDGs, (2) developing an agenda for research, teaching and management. Workshop topics a) SDGs as societal and political mission for Universities b) SDGs as mission for Universities in education for sustainable development in the future c) SDGs as mission in research – address contradictions, identify knowledge gaps and pathways to sustainability