First Working Group Meeting

The Working Group on Improving Global Policymaking for the SDGs met for the first time in New York, U.S. on August 16 - 17, 2016.  In a closed two-day meeting, the Working Group agreed the Terms of Reference, heard from guest speakers, and mapped the next steps of the project.

The participants discussed the current landscape for global scientific advice and ways of strengthening the science-policy interface.  Three invited experts (Susan Avery, Bill Colglazier, Heide Hackmann) provided insights on the key challenges that scientists and science advisors face in advising global policy.  

It was agreed that a key objective of this project is to help raise the awareness of the SDGs amongst national science academies, inter-academy networks and the wider scientific community, and to explore where they can individually and collectively better play their part in their implementation.

The next five months will focus on intelligence-gathering and consultation – speaking to key stakeholders and conducting a comprehensive survey of IAP member academies and national young academies to gauge what they are doing that is relevant to the SDGs, what prevents them from doing more, and how they think they can best contribute to this agenda in future.

The Working Group will next meet in Paris on 1-2 February 2017.