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1. Engaging the Youth Environmental Alliance in Higher Education to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

   https://doi.org/10.18833/spur/5/1/1  

   Whipple, Sarah; Tiwari, Shardul; Osborne, Tashiana C.; Bowser, Gillian; Green, Sarah A.; Templer, Pamela H.; Ho, Susie S. (September 2021, Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research)

   The authors present a new approach to show how interdisciplinary collaborations among a group of institutions can provide a unique opportunity for students to engage across the science-policy nexus using the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Through collaboration across seven higher education institutions in the United States and Australia, virtual student research teams worked together across disciplines. 

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2. Toward Effective Capacity Sharing for the Ocean Sciences: Opportunities for Collaboration with UNESCO/IOC’s Capacity Development Programme

   https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2025.118  

   Diwa-Acallar, Johanna; Azevedo_Mazzuco, Ana; Reed, Gregory; Pissierssens, Peter (January 2025, Oceanography)

   Sustainable development, including conservation of the ocean, its habitats, and resources, requires integrated global efforts. As a leading United Nations body for oceanic matters, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (UNESCO/IOC) plays a pivotal role in facilitating and developing mechanisms to improve ocean science, management, and services worldwide. This paper examines UNESCO/IOC's approach to capacity sharing, highlighting empowerment of individuals, organizations, and governments in achieving sustainable development goals following guidelines established by the family of nations under various multilateral environmental agreements. It presents the Commission’s strategic capacity development framework, analyzes lessons from regional coordination mechanisms, and explores collaborative strategies for addressing capacity development barriers. The manuscript also underscores the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) as a transformative opportunity to foster capacity development and effective sharing of ocean science knowledge and resources. 

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3. Increasing Social Relevance to Increase Inclusion in First-Year Seminars

   Ramsey, Laura; Kling, Thomas; Deline, Alyssa; Marintcheva, Boriana; Mendell, Jennifer; Serna-Otalvaro, Samuel; Oussa, Vignon (April 2024, AAC&U)

   Research has shown that making STEM socially relevant can attract more diverse students to STEM fields. Learn to utilize the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to center socially relevant goals in first-year seminars, as we did when constructing STEM linked-course learning communities. The seminars were designed to foster a communal view of science and mathematics, both in terms of the importance of collaboration to STEM success and the application of STEM to real-world problems. Course structures and sample materials will be shared as inspiration. Conversations will focus on helping visitors increase the social relevance of their own courses or curricula. 

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4. Marine Life 2030: building global knowledge of marine life for local action in the Ocean Decade

   https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsac084  

   Muller-Karger, Frank E; Canonico, Gabrielle; Aguilar, Claudia Baron; Bax, Nicholas J; Appeltans, Ward; Yarincik, Kristen; Leopardas, Venus; Sousa-Pinto, Isabel; Nakaoka, Masahiro; Aikappu, Akkeshi; et al (May 2022, ICES Journal of Marine Science)

   Blasiak, Robert (Ed.)

   Abstract Marine Life 2030 is a programme endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (the Ocean Decade) to establish a globally coordinated system that delivers knowledge of ocean life to those who need it, promoting human well-being, sustainable development, and ocean conservation. It is an open network to unite existing and new programmes into a co-designed, global framework to share information on methods, standards, observations, and applications. Goals include realizing interoperable information and transforming the observation and forecasting of marine life for the benefit of all people. Co-design, sharing local capacity, and coordination between users of ocean resources across regions is fundamental to enable sustainable use and conservation. A novel, bottom-up networking structure is now engaging members of the ocean community to address local issues, with Marine Life 2030 facilitating the linkage between groups across different regions to meet the challenges of the Ocean Decade. A variety of metrics, including those proposed by the Group on Earth Observations, will be used to track the success of the co-design process. 

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5. Leveraging the metacoupling framework for sustainability science and global sustainable development

   https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwad090  

   Liu, Jianguo (March 2023, National Science Review)

   ABSTRACT Sustainability science seeks to understand human–nature interactions behind sustainability challenges, but has largely been place-based. Traditional sustainability efforts often solved problems in one place at the cost of other places, compromising global sustainability. The metacoupling framework offers a conceptual foundation and a holistic approach to integrating human–nature interactions within a place, as well as between adjacent places and between distant places worldwide. Its applications show broad utilities for advancing sustainability science with profound implications for global sustainable development. They have revealed effects of metacoupling on the performance, synergies, and trade-offs of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across borders and across local to global scales; untangled complex interactions; identified new network attributes; unveiled spatio-temporal dynamics and effects of metacoupling; uncovered invisible feedbacks across metacoupled systems; expanded the nexus approach; detected and integrated hidden phenomena and overlooked issues; re-examined theories such as Tobler's First Law of Geography; and unfolded transformations among noncoupling, coupling, decoupling, and recoupling. Results from the applications are also helpful to achieve SDGs across space, amplify benefits of ecosystem restoration across boundaries and across scales, augment transboundary management, broaden spatial planning, boost supply chains, empower small agents in the large world, and shift from place-based to flow-based governance. Key topics for future research include cascading effects of an event in one place on other places both nearby and far away. Operationalizing the framework can benefit from further tracing flows across scales and space, uplifting the rigor of causal attribution, enlarging toolboxes, and elevating financial and human resources. Unleashing the full potential of the framework will generate more important scientific discoveries and more effective solutions for global justice and sustainable development. 

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