New funding for sustainable diplomacy and circular economy

One of the selected projects, led by Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, seeks to address growing global tensions through innovative diplomatic strategies.

“Faced with growing global tensions, our project will find new diplomatic strategies for reaching global sustainability goals. To do so, we will use the latest understanding of how multiple social and environmental challenges interact to form a polycrisis,” explains Søgaard Jørgensen.

He continues: “We will identify countries, businesses, and organizations with power to influence the development of the polycrisis and devise strategies for how they can be engaged in global sustainability.”

The funding comes from Mistra Utmana, a program designed to support transformative ideas that challenge conventional thinking. This year’s call focused on reducing resource consumption, accelerating the circular economy, and advancing diplomacy for sustainability.

Søgaard Jørgensen, who is also deputy director of the GEDB programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, leads the project titled Anthropocene Navigator: Identifying Robust Coalition-Building Strategies for Advancing Global Sustainability in the Face of Polycrisis.

Other Centre researchers involved are Lan Wang-Erlandsson and Henrik Österblom (also director of the Anthropocene Laboratory at the academy of sciences), along with Timothy Waring from the University of Maine, USA.

A second funded project, Circular Economy and Ecologically Unequal Exchange: Uncovering Barriers and Opportunities to Reduced Resource Consumption, is led by Centre researcher Tiina Häyhä. This project explores systemic challenges and potential pathways for creating a circular economy, addressing critical barriers to reducing global resource use while promoting sustainable development.

Both initiatives underscore the Centre’s commitment to tackling the complex, interconnected challenges of our time through transdisciplinary research and strategic collaboration.

The total budget for the 16 projects funded by Mistra Utmana is 96 million SEK, with each project running for a maximum of three years. The planned start date for all projects is March 2025.