The Executive Committee of the International Social Science Council strongly supports the Sustainability Initiative of the International Association on Social Quality. We live in a world where environmental change, poverty, inequality in its countless forms, corruption and social discontent are intricately linked; they cannot be disentangled or addressed in isolation. Undoubtedly, the biggest challenge we now face is to secure the transition of societies to global sustainability. This requires us to integrate respect for the Earth's resources with the need for human security and global social equity. In this context, the demand for social science knowledge is increasing.
Meeting this challenge requires new ways of conceiving the role of science to contribute solutions. The International Social Science Council concluded in its 2013 World Social Science Report with a call for a transformative social science to be bolder in reinterpreting global environmental change as a social problem; better at infusing social science insights into real-world problem solving; bigger in terms of having more social scientists to focus on global environmental change; and different in its approaches and modes of thinking about sustainability challenges.
We regard the current Initiative for Sustainability as an important effort to mobilize scientists around research platforms like Future Earth, which allow integrated approaches, incorporating natural, economic, social and cultural dimensions. We therefore call upon scientists and colleagues all around the world to support the Initiative. Go to: http://www.socialquality.org/issc-supports-sustainability-manifesto/
Alberto Martinelli
International Social Science Council, President