Presentation of the IRD/Iméra Chair on Sustainable Development
The objective of this chair is to develop research programs at the highest international level on all the themes of sustainable development, in particular those set out in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, based on innovative interdisciplinary approaches. It is open to all disciplines, themes focused on the science of sustainability and development and emphasizing the understanding of the links, synergies and trade-offs between the SDGs (the nexus approach). It is about understanding, simultaneously, phenomena at different scales and helping to solve complex real-world problems that existing disciplines have not addressed. Areas of interest include (but are not limited to): climate change, land use change, continental and marine biodiversity conservation, cities and urbanization, agriculture/fisheries and food security, pollution, health and the environment, mobility, all related to sustainable development.
About the Chair’s partner
The Research Institute for Development (IRD) is a French research organization, original and unique in the landscape of research for development. Privileging interdisciplinarity, the IRD organizes its research around an equitable scientific partnership with developing countries, through its international network, by bringing a logic of co-production of solutions to the global challenges of development with the scientific communities. partners. The IRD thus positions its research for development as major tools of the new international development agenda.
About the actual holder of the Chair
William Sacher’s research project at Iméra, the Institute for Advanced Study of Aix-Marseille University, aims to establish an innovative connection between the concepts and methods of environmental economics, ecological economics, and geosciences. The main objective of the project is to develop new interdisciplinary indicators and tools to assess the “sustainability” of large-scale mining in the Global South. Large-scale mining in the Global South can be both a driver of economic growth through tax revenues and a source of severe impacts on socio-ecosystems as well as social conflicts.