NRP 73: progress and challenges
04.07.2023
Members of the Steering Committee highlight the progress made and main challenges faced since the start of NRP 73.
The panel discussion with professors Alison Anderson, Michael Obersteiner, Anne Petitpierre and Helga Weisz focused on the progress made since the start of NRP 73 in 2014, and emphasised the continued relevance of the topics chosen at the outset. Panellists spoke about the programme’s forward-looking approaches to ecosystem services, the circular economy and the footprint of global supply chains, which have had a big impact in both science and wider society.
Our society has faced a plethora of challenges over the past six years, including the euro/financial crisis, COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine. These phases of uncertainty have shown that behavioural change can happen very quickly under the right conditions, and have demonstrated the importance of economic resilience that goes beyond mere efficiency. The panel discussed the challenges of communication and disinformation in our ultra-connected world.
Participants agreed that there is a discrepancy between good intentions and tangible actions, and stressed the urgent need to overcome this gap with ambitious political measures and solid legal frameworks. They asserted that climate change cannot be treated as a secondary issue and that the findings of NRP 73 should be a catalyst for a more ambitious and lasting transition to a sustainable economy. The panel also highlighted the importance of transdisciplinary partnerships between research and practice and the central role of knowledge transfer between researchers, wider society and political decision makers.