Welcome 2025!

The first year of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development has been busy for the incoming EHC. The second one that is starting soon will undoubtedly be even more interesting.

On 13^th December 2024, 37 people, representing 29 members of EHC attended the last General Assembly meeting of the year (six other members were excused because of schedule conflicts, especially for representatives based in Australia and Eastern Asia). They were joined by five participants to the working groups that had been working since the September meeting of the General Assembly.

A lot of achievements

This meeting has been the opportunity to give an updated account of what has been accomplished by EHC since its first General Assembly meeting in April:

• 50 registered members;
• a full communication suite, with a logo, a presentation video, a website, a flyer and a brand guide;
• a new version of the charter;
• participation to several meetings and conferences, online and in person, especially:
  • 6^th African Regional Science, Technology & Innovation Forum (Addis Ababa, April), co-organized by UNESCO,
  • IDSSD program at Zhongguancun Forum (Beijing, April),
  • Sustainability Research & Innovation 2024 (Helsinki and Espoo, June),
  • International Congress of the International Union of Psychological Science, Prague,
  • CBD COP16 (Cali, October),
  • CILAC 2024, Forum of Open Science for Latin America and the Caribbean (Isla San Andrés, Colombia, December),
  • UNCCD COP16 (Riyadh, December);
• participation to the Executive Committee of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development.

And many projects

On the projects side, several working threads have been initiated, mainly through discussions. A webinar series about Linking Emerging Transdisciplinary Fields and Concepts is in the making. Several webinars have also been held by the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of EHC, and the series will continue. The same organization is preparing two international conferences for 2025.

To share transdisciplinary work, an initiative has emerged, based on the Zenodo open platform, developped at CERN. With this platform, any kind of digital file can be uploaded to a searchable digital repository. It is organized into communities, that organize as they wish to.

The community “Transdisciplinary research for sustainable development” has been created. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between IUPAP, on behalf of EHC, and Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, on behalf of the Belmont Forum: the aim is to develop the uploading of publications and data produced by the projects funded by the Belmont Forum. Several initiatives are planned in 2025 to co-construct the relevant community and adapt the tool to their needs.

Luc Allemand