SUMMARY ✎
The Springer Nature Grand Challenges portal is an online home for groundbreaking academic research on the world’s most pressing societal problems. Each week the portal features thought-leading reporting, discoveries, insights and analysis from the brands that Springer Nature publishes: Scientific American, Nature and its sibling journals in the Nature family, Springer, Palgrave, BMC (formerly BioMed Central), and more.
The mission of the Springer Nature Grand Challenges programme is delivering academic expertise to people who can use it to develop solutions. That includes other academics—the portal aims to be useful to researchers who want to stay abreast of the solutions-oriented research, commentary, and analysis on grand societal challenges.
It also means policymakers, business leaders, and civil society representatives. Too often, the architect designing the public housing project never hears about the groundbreaking research on the psychological and economic benefits of urban greenery. The public health official doesn’t know whether taxes or warning labels will better dissuade people from smoking. The utility regulator doesn’t hear the latest on just how urgent it is to slash carbon emissions from the power sector, and takes an incremental approach instead.
As the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development makes clear, partnerships between stakeholders, including government, civil society, the private sector, are essential for meeting the U.N.’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). Through both the portal and the Grand Challenges events, Springer aims to foster the sorts of dialogue that can crystallize insight, foster new partnerships, and promote evidence-based solutions. In this way Springer Nature can leverage the breadth and depth of expertise they publish and contribute to an equitable, healthy and sustainable world.