The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Contributions from the Humanities

The UNESCO Hangzhou Declaration of 2013 highlighted the importance of culture as ‘an enabler and driver of sustainable development’. In spring 2021, the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies ran a short research project to investigate the reasons for the gap between the potential and actual contribution of the Humanities. We worked jointly with SHM, a consultancy firm which specialises in applying insights from the Humanities to solving problems for businesses, public policy-makers and NGOs, and held a series of interdisciplinary discussions with a range of UCL researchers, from PhD students to professors. The aim was to identify ways of applying Humanities' insights to work on SDGs and to make proposals for policies to help ensure that the Humanities are fully integrated into the debates from now on.

As part of this project, the UCL SDG Humanities App launched on 8th February 2022, a collaborative resource for gathering critical perspectives, grounded in humanities thinking, on the United Nations SDGs. All members of UCL, regardless of academic experience and previously knowledge of the SDGs, are invited to participate by submitting responses on any of the SDGs in one of three categories (Critical Thinking, Existing Humanities Research, Recommendations and Proposals). The material submitted through the app will contribute to a research project ongoing at UCL’s Institute of Advanced Studies, led by Professor Nicola Miller and Professor Maurice Biriotti. As well as contributing to this important debate, participation in the experiment will feed into the latest thinking at UCL on innovative research strategy and policy impact within the university and beyond.

 

 

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