Future Earth in China Symposium focusses on co-design

At a meeting held in Beijing earlier today, members of the China National Committee for Future Earth announced their 12 research priorities and discussed the framework for co-design in Future Earth.

The Symposium brought together around 30 members of the Chinese National Committee for Future Earth with members of the Future Earth Science Committee and interim Engagement Committee. Following an update on progress in the implementation of Future Earth, Dahe Qin, member of the Future Earth Science Committee and Chair of the Chinese National Committee for Future Earth, and Guoxiong Wu, Vice-Chair of the Chinese National Committee, spoke on the development of Future Earth in China.

The Chinese National Committee for Future Earth was formed on 21 March 2014, and comprises over 40 experts covering the natural and social sciences, engineering, funding agencies and media, who will work on the co-design, co-production and co-delivery of knowledge on global change in China. In line with this aim, the Committee has identified 12 priority areas for research, including pollution, urbanisation and disaster risk resilience, all key challenges for sustainable development pathways in Asia.

Bob Watson also spoke on co-design and engagement under Future Earth, highlighting the impressive progress made by the Chinese Committee. He stressed that Future Earth builds on decades of excellence in scientific research under the existing Global Environmental Change programmes, but that it needs to make a step change in increasing the impact of that work by ensuring that research questions are relevant to the needs of policy makers and decision makers across the world. He also noted that the co-design framework will have to be tailored to each research question, and will vary from project to project.