FORging SUstainability Science and HELSUS for Societal Change

FORSUS aims to (a) take stock of the key insights from sustainability science and analyse to what extent and how they have impacted sustainability research and policy practices (and failed to do so), and based on that (b) ascertain what reasons most commonly disrupt the congruence between research production and societal impact, (c) reorient sustainability science (HELSUS) from the creation and marketing of high-level academic concepts to the operationalization of systems knowledge at the interface between sustainability research, policy making, civil society uptake, and societal utilization. The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of FORSUS include diverse perspectives, ranging from the social sciences to the physical and natural sciences.
To achieve the objectives, FORSUS explicitly seeks to enhance the collaboration and cooperation of HELSUS professors (all contributing members of FORSUS). Enhancing our societal impact as HELSUS professors and the leaders of sustainability science at the University of Helsinki is the goal. We aim to explicate novel linkages between the national and regional policies in the Global South, the Global North and the Arctic. Similarly, the project takes a whole-of-field approach to the SDGs.