The aim in sustainability science of fostering a coherent interdisciplinary system of research planning and practice has given less room for research rooted in the social sciences and humanities that calls the basic assumptions of modern society

into question. It can, therefore, be argued that global sustainability challenges cannot be understood or solved solely in the natural, medical or engineering sciences; equal efforts must be devoted to examining the challenges from other ontologies and epistemologies. In this article, and unlike most emerging initiatives in the field, we suggest an approach that tangibly incorporates social science dimensions into sustainability science research. We proceed from Robert Cox’s (1981) conceptual distinction selleck products CHIR-99021 in vivo between problem-solving and critical research and aim at finding new ways of integrating knowledge across the natural and social divides, as well as between critical and problem-solving research. The knowledge integration will be accomplished by developing

a generic research platform with flexible methods that can be used for studying any combination of major sustainability challenges, such as: climate change; biodiversity loss; depletion of marine fish stocks; land degradation; land use changes; water scarcity; and global ill-health owing to neglected tropical diseases and the major epidemics of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS (Hotez et al. 2007). Throughout the article, we discuss themes, frames and concepts that can help to structure sustainability science. Methane monooxygenase To exemplify

specifically how research can be organised using the approach, a brief example from the Lund University Centre of Excellence for Integration of Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability (LUCID) is Dinaciclib datasheet provided in “A LUCID example”. Old social problems and new sustainability challenges There is ample social research on structural transformation, institutional shifts and systemic transition. Economists, geographers, historians and sociologists have depicted, documented and discussed how societies struggle over centuries to overcome long-standing social problems like hunger, disease, poverty and violation of human rights. Narratives on social change and the persistence of old problems are, thus, abundant. Recently, science has identified new or escalating geo-bio-physical phenomena and processes with deep social impacts; these include biodiversity loss, land use change, water scarcity and climate change. There is a fundamental difference in the dynamics between old social problems and such new sustainability challenges. Extant problems like hunger, disease and poverty have been experienced and dealt with in isolation by people as well as collectively by society over millennia.