Director’s view
Another year of the Covid-19 pandemic has passed, during which time we have demonstrated remarkable resilience
TO BE PHYSICALLY APART for so long is a stretch for any workplace – especially one built on close collaboration and innovative partnerships.
Despite this challenge, however, 2021 once again saw some very strong achievements by our staff.
In terms of scientific output, we continued to publish papers on a variety of topics, across a more diverse range of journals. In fact, as the number of interdisciplinary journals in the field of sustainability science continues to grow, it is safe to say that our research is well-represented across the board.
The number of SRC publications per year has averaged at around 190 over the past three years, with many of these papers being published in high-impact journals.
Additionally, five of our researchers were acknowledged as Highly Cited Scholars in 2021. While this is fewer than last year (when we had eight), our researchers represent over 80% of the Highly Cited Scholars at Stockholm University.
To see results like these in the midst of a pandemic makes me particularly proud of my colleagues.
Exciting new funding
Our researchers also excelled in competitive research funding calls. We are deeply grateful for the new research grants that we have been awarded by foundations such as the IKEA Foundation and Gullspång Re:food.
With this funding complementing the funding from the Curt Bergfors Foundation that we received in 2020, we have been able to recruit two new professors.
Moreover, we are excited to be hosting a new large Mistra programme (FAIRTRANS) and a new European Research Council starting grant, in addition to being a partner of the Sustainable Finance Lab at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
A scientific highlight of the year was the launch of the Blue Food Assessment – a collaboration between the SRC, Stanford University and EAT.
The assessment brought together over 100 researchers to explore the role of aquatic foods in building healthy, sustainable and equitable food systems. Research findings and opinion pieces were published in a collection of articles across Nature and other Nature-related journals and the results were fed straight into the UN Food System Summit.
A further highlight was the first Nobel Prize Summit, hosted by the Nobel Foundation and organised by the US National Academy of Sciences, in partnership with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the SRC and the Beijer Institute.
SRC and Beijer were the main organisers of the science session (pictured below) and professor Carl Folke led a landmark paper published in Ambio, which served as a background document for the whole summit.
Books, policy and outreach
Furthermore, our communication and engagement work is still going strong. For example, we were heavily involved in the COP26 in Glasgow, where the Global Resilience Partnership, hosted by the SRC, was the key organiser of the Resilience Hub and the lead coordinator for the “Race to Resilience” campaign.
The Global Commons Alliance (established by the SRC and partners) led the Nature Hub, Nature News Room and Nature Positive Campaign.
Throughout the year, our researchers also engaged in communication activities such as the Netflix documentary Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet, and the associated book Breaking Boundaries by Johan Rockström and Owen Gaffney.
Two other popular science books were also released by colleagues: Kursen (The Course) by Lisen Schultz and Erica Treijs and Den uppfinningsrika planeten (The ingenious planet) by Fredrik Moberg.
The book Kursen builds on insights from our executive programme on resilience thinking, which has been running since 2018. The programme is tailor-made for business leaders to take a deep dive into the megatrends shaping our planet and global economy.
The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems, edited by SRC researchers Oonsie Biggs and Maja Schlüter together with colleagues from Stellenbosch and Rhodes Universities, became the most read open-access book by Routledge in 2021.
Education and finance
Overall, our education programmes are going well. We started a new undergraduate course in Sustainability Science in 2021. Next year, we anticipate that over 100 students will attend this course, which will be delivered in collaboration with the Stockholm Business School.
Financially, we exceeded all expectations and ended up with a net positive result of over SEK 16 million.
For the first time ever, our annual turnover surpassed SEK 200 million. However, this strong result constitutes the surplus that we have accumulated over the past three to four years, which we have only now been able to attain.
After a couple of turbulent years, our financial and administrative capacity has improved, which is in turn reflected in our financial results.
To see results like these in the midst of a pandemic makes me feel particularly proud of my colleagues. It is thanks to their remarkable collaboration and their insightful work that we come out of 2021 stronger than ever.
Professor Line Gordon, director