Cross-fertilized Fields of Knowledge and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Dear Colleagues;

Our world’s sustainability and the existential threat felt by humankind are one and the same.  Climate change in particular inspires multilateral coordination and increasingly insistent protest movements – in early 2021; French activists would sue their government in court over what they see as inaction.  Other marquee issues include the need for renewable energy; and for managing the opportunities and threats presented by artificial intelligence and greater automation.  In scholarship; a tone of urgency has been set by a torrent of major works; such as Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus (2016); Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (2019); and Toby Ord’s The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (2020). We face not merely challenges in terms of science and technology; but evolving demographic pressures including migration and population booms in some regions and aging in others; vacillating economies and exposure to catastrophes such as the Covid-19 outbreak of 2020/2021.

For more than 30 years; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — a United Nations body — has tracked ecological developments; their causes; potential impacts; and response options. The UN Decade of Sustainable Development ran from 2005 to 2014; resulting in the UN’s 2015’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) **. The fifteen-year SDG framework formulates seventeen priorities around which communities and individuals; and government and non-government organizations; might direct their efforts. The most recent IPCC messages again warn that at present the world is on the eve of potential tragedy and that still stronger emergency preparedness is needed.

This special issue of Sustainability titled “Cross-fertilized fields of knowledge and sustainable development goals (SDGs)” will focus especially on how practical and theoretical approaches rooted in the social; educational; economic and natural sciences create cross-disciplinary areas of investigation and technological advance. The special issue brings together the perspectives of practitioners and scholars from different areas of endeavor; from academic institutions and non-government organizations in Europe (8); Middle-East (1); North-America (3) Central and South America (3); Australia (2); Africa (2) and East Asia (5). The SDGs serve as important subthemes for advancing the welfare of humans and other forms of life; and for more fruitful interaction with the geology and sources of energy we depend upon. Each article will address; in 10 - 15 pages; one or more of the SDGs and how practices and theories can contribute to interdisciplinary progress and wide-ranging applications.

The contributions are expected to nourish the thinking of a vast public; from researchers and students to ordinary citizens; towards large-scale transitions caused by global change and development; remediating disruption and disorientation for humanity.

Okayama University is a leader in the field of SDGs in Japan. Through establishing an on-campus SDG Promotion Headquarters; the university has made extensive efforts to contribute to global initiatives. In 2017; in cooperation with other organizations; the university held the world’s first international conference on the attainment of SDGs in Okayama City. Okayama is the only national university to be a recipient of the first Japanese SDG Awards; organized by the national government. Okayama’s national and international networks enable a worldwide perspective on the decisive challenges for humanity; directed towards the global; and anchored in centers of research and innovation.

** SDGs: List of Goals

The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs):

1: No Poverty

2: Zero Hunger

3: Good Health and Well-being

4: Quality Education

5: Gender Equality

6: Clean Water and Sanitation

7: Affordable and Clean Energy

8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

9: Industry; Innovation and Infrastructure

10: Reduced Inequality

11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

12: Responsible Consumption and Production

13: Climate Action

14: Life Below Water

15: Life on Land

16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal

Prof. Bernard Chenevier
Prof. Dong Kwang KIM
Prof. Pete LEIHY
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainability
• sustainability of educational programs
• stability of economic models in the 2000s
• theranostics for advanced sustainable medical treatments
• renewable energy
• clean energy
• high technologies
• cross-fertilization
• social issues and their impact on a sustainable world