Johan Schot delivers keynote speech at Sustainable Europe 2030

Johan Schot, Professor of Global Comparative History at the Centre for Global Challenges, will be delivering the keynote speech at the conference Sustainable Europe 2030, to be held in Brussels on 8 April.

The subject of Schot’s keynote will be ‘Transformative Innovation Policy for a Sustainable Europe’. ‘The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda are the ambitious to-do list for Europe and the World. How the SDGs will be reached is still the big question', says Schot. ‘The approach, advanced by the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC), is that emphasis should be put, not on the individual goals, but in fact on the SDG strapline ‘Transform our World’. Rather than treating the SDGs as targets, or top-down missions, actors should focus on the transformation processes of socio-technical systems, which will deliver on the SDG mission and forge the Second Deep Transition in a bottom-up and integrated way.’

 Sustainable Europe 2030

The conference Sustainable Europe 2030 is organised by the European Political Strategy Centre of the European Commission. Speakers are, amongst others, Frans Timmermans, first Vice-President of the European Commission, and Jyrki Katainen, Vice-President of the European Commission.

Motto of the conference is ‘From goals to Delivery’. Delivering on sustainable development is about more than ticking the boxes of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Taking the EU and the world on a sustainable path requires a change of perspective, turning risks into opportunities, and rethinking some of the key systems that underpin the way we live and work. The conference addresses questions like where does Europe stand and what are the key challenges and paradoxes it faces? What are best practices and areas for improvement? Which policies and initiatives are already delivering and where is further action required to implement a shift to a more sustainable socio-economic model?