The increasing prominence of sustainability science stems from the realization that many of the most pressing global problems facing society are complex mixtures of economic, societal and environmental issues, and that solving the resulting problems will require collaboration among researchers from many different scientific disciplines. The reduced resilience of natural systems is creating coupled socio-ecological systems that need to be addressed on an appropriate level to allow natural, physical and social sciences to provide stronger predictive capacities and to point the way to solutions for the management of these systems.
Supported by the NOMIS Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (United States), the international research platform Future Earth established the Program for Early-Phase Grants Advancing Sustainability Science (PEGASuS). By bringing together teams of scientists that have a successful track record of building large-scale collaborative projects and by coordinating their efforts to develop interdisciplinary methods, PEGASuS aimed to build effective research communities around three major themes:
- Integration of water, energy and food management
- Prediction of and adaption to rapid changes in ecosystems
- Sustainable management of ocean resources
While the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation provided core support with a strong emphasis on natural and physical science, the NOMIS Foundation enabled Future Earth to fully integrate social science researchers into PEGASuS projects.
PEGASuS was led by Joshua Tewksbury at the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University.
