Aim & Research Topics
Rapid economic and demographic growth, anthropogenic drivers as well as climate related drivers are increasing pressures on naturally scarce water and land resources in the Arabian Gulf countries. The abundancy of fossil fuel reserves together with the integration in the global trade and technology-based economy are compensating for water and land shortages, allowing for food and technology imports, maintaining state-of-the-art infrastructure and influencing the inflow of expatriate workforces. However, the ecological footprints in consumption and the energy intensities in production are high in the region. The future challenge for Gulf challenge lies in reducing the overall ecological footprint while improving human development, life quality and capacities of local populations. The State of Qatar has thus embarked on an ambitious National Vision for 2030 focusing on economic transformation, building capacities through human and social development and protecting important environmental resources.
The Human Sustainability Program aims at establishing excellent, collaborative research endeavors in order to analyze the drivers, governance challenges and solutions related to natural resources use and economic transformation. The research areas of the program include the following topics
- Sustainability transition, economic diversification and decarbonization
- Ecological innovations and the role of technological change
- Economic reforms and incentives for efficient resource allocation
- Policy integration and planning for the water-energy-food Nexus
- Consumption patterns, awareness and public engagement
Alignment
The Human Sustainability Program is aligned with QNV’s and associated national research strategies focusing on issues such as environmental sustainability and its role for economic diversifications in the State of Qatar. It is directly aligned with QU’s research pillars “Energy and Environment” and “Social Sciences and Humanities”. Within the Energy and Environment pillar, the Human Sustainability program contributes to advance policy-relevant perspectives to issues such as water and food security, energy efficiency and renewable energy or environment and biodiversity. In this sense, it provides several services and social science perspectives to other programs of CSD. It is also aligned with global sustainability paradigms such as the SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities, SDG2 on responsible consumption and production, or SDG 16 and SDG17 on needed institutions and global partnerships for sustainable development.