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EDITORIAL 
 

Sustainability Science Remains a Challenge for 
Academia 
 

Kamal Bawa  
 
Sustainability is the defining theme of this century. Sustainability Science 
based on the integration of a wide range of disciplines including arts and 
humanities is one of the means to achieve sustainability. The inclusion of 
arts and humanities indeed calls into the question the use of “science” in 
Sustainability Science. Putting this question aside, this journal itself is 
symbolic of efforts to nurture and foster Sustainability Science. The current 
issue covers a range of topics that constitute the core of Sustainability 
Science. 

Forests in many countries of the global South are contested domains, with 
local communities and the state having different perspectives about the use 
and governance of forest ecosystems. In the opening essay, one of our 
leading thinkers on sustainability renews his call for new approaches to 
meet challenges related to governance of forest ecosystems. If integration 
of various types of knowledge is a key element of Conservation Science, 
integration of ideas, perspectives and approaches also underpins the 
practice of sustainability. And, indeed the merging of knowledge and 
practice is the basis of transdisciplinary Conservation Science.  

The Conversations section with commentaries by prominent educators, 
who are bringing innovations in graduate programs, shows the ways to 
build the future leadership in Sustainability Science. Fresh thinking is also 
the key element of the Essay that explores the role of science and 
uncertainties in decision-making. Various research papers, notes from the 

 
 Coordinating Editor (2018–19). University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA 02125-3393; and 
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, 560 064, 
India; kamal.bawa@gmail.com 

Copyright © Bawa 2019. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 
4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v2i2.68  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v2i2.68


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [2] 

field, reports and book review describe several other aspects of 
sustainability. 

Altogether the articles in this issue show the promise and the distance the 
academia and society—as I also argued in in my editorial in the last issue—
need to cover to make our world more sustainable. Although, the global 
community has set lofty goals in the form of United Nations Sustainable 
Development Goals to secure a better future for the planet and its people, 
the countries, especially in the global South, where sustainability challenges 
are becoming more severe day by day, have not taken steps to advance 
knowledge and practice that will ensure a sustainable future. 

As the authors of various pieces in the Conversation section imply, nothing 
short of a radical transformation in curricula, the research enterprise, 
including funding, and the way knowledge is integrated with policies and 
action are required. We need far more centers in academia than what exists 
today. Sustainability Science centers are scarce even in the United States and 
Europe, and much fewer in countries of the South, posing a challenge that 
is not being addressed with the urgency it deserves. 

South Asian countries and more specifically India with vast human 
resources and numerous institutions of learning have the means and 
successful indigenously developed models to encourage and support a 
major expansion of higher education programs in Sustainability Science. 
There is also considerable expertise in sustainability in the private sector, 
particularly in the information technology sector. There are thus 
opportunities for many types of partnerships to foster Sustainability Science 

Within the universities, policy makers, university administrators and faculty 
have to accord the primacy to Sustainability Science. Everywhere, the 
undergraduate programs at most universities are woefully inadequate to 
prepare students for meeting the future societal challenges. It is 
inconceivable that in this day and age, any college or university can graduate 
a student without exposure to basic concepts and approaches underlying 
Sustainability Science.  

The journal and the wide community that support the journal have an 
important role to play in articulating the case for the rapid expansion of 
research and education in Sustainability Science. Perhaps a future issue 
could explore the constraints to such an expansion and the ways to 
overcome such constraints at all educational levels. At stake is the planet’s 
future, and by association, ours. 


