Annual report 2018

Finding pathways for reconnecting humans to the biosphere is becoming more important and more acknowledged than ever. The same goes for our research.

Since its establishment in 2007, the centre has accumulated more than 700 journal publications. In 2018, we added more than 160 scientific articles to the list. A third of them appeared in journals with an impact factor of four or higher.

Our public profile rose sharply in 2018. We continued our interactions in the international policy space, with significant contributions from our Sida-funded programmes SwedBio, the Global Resilience Partnership and the GRAID programme. Our presence in international media was extraordinary. For instance, the Hothouse Earth paper published in PNAS was the fourth most talked about paper of all published papers in 2018.

Our engagement with business is also stronger than ever. The new executive programme in resilience thinking attracted CEOs from some of Sweden’s leading business companies, and the SeaBOS initiative continues to collaborate with the world’s largest seafood companies as they commit to increase their efforts for more sustainable practices in the seafood industry.

But 2018 was also was also a testing year for ourselves. It marked the end of a first and successful 12-year phase, where we established ourselves as an internationally recognised research centre on sustainability science. Line Gordon was appointed as the new centre director after Johan Rockström stepped down after over a decade at the helm. Victor Galaz was selected as the new deputy director and Carl Folke became the new chair of the centre’s governing board.

As we look towards 2019, we feel that we are stronger than ever. But first a reflection on 2018. Download the annual report here Pdf, 11.6 MB. (Pdf, 11.6 MB)