SDG

Why do we have the Sustainable Development Goals and why are university collaborations essential in making progress on them? Hear from Peter Lennie, WUN Executive Director, and special guest Jeffrey Sachs, President of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, as they launch a new WUN networking initiative for early-career researchers working on the world’s biggest challenges.  

Peter Lennie discusses the importance of collaborative networks at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network ‘University Sector Support to UN Secretary-General’s Call for a Decade of Action on the SDGs: A Meeting of Presidents of Universities’. to an audience of university and United Nations leaders.

(22 June series update)

Following World Oceans Day, WUN is pleased to share a presentation of a series of articles in which United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) presents ocean science from WUN member the University of Bergen, UNAI’s Hub institution for SDG 14: Life below water in the Sustainable Ocean Series. 

We will be sharing four features from this project, a new article to be published each Monday, and also highlight what WUN research teams are doing to address the future of our oceans.  Click through for more.

While disasters and environmental factors have always been important drivers of migration, even more people are expected to move as they face the projected impacts of climate change, including more extreme weather events, changes in water quality and availability, and interactions with conflict. 

A recent ruling of the UN Human Rights Committee, which stated that people cannot be sent back to countries where climate change impacts place them in immediate danger, was treated by many commentators as a landmark protection for environmental migrants. As Professor Andreas Neef (University of Auckland) explains in this feature, the reality is more complex. Recipient of a 2020 WUN Research Development Fund award, a WUN member consortium will advance interdisciplinary research into climate-induced migration. It aims to help improve policies through a better understanding of the complex drivers of migration and displacement associated with climatic changes.  Click through for the full story.

Using advanced computer models, CUHK researchers found that intercropping enables higher productivity in crops with less synthetic fertilizers and hence reduces the air pollutants being volatilized from the cropland soil. This sustainable farming practice may help maintain a stable food supply and mitigate the air pollution problem in China.