The International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development proclaimed by the UN for 2022
Abstract
We need more basic sciences to achieve Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This is the message sent to the world by the United Nations General Assembly on 2 December 2021: Member States approved by consensus the resolution 76/A/L.12 promulgating the year 2022 as the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD2022).
With this resolution, the United Nations General Assembly:
“invites all [its] Member States, organizations of the UNs system and other global, regional and subregional organizations, as well as other relevant stakeholders, including academia, civil society, inter alia, international and national nongovernmental organizations, individuals and the private sector, to observe and raise awareness of the importance of basic sciences for sustainable development, in accordance with national priorities.”
The United Nations General Assembly motivated its decision with “the high value for humankind of basic sciences,” and with the fact that “enhanced global awareness of, and increased education in, the basic sciences is vital to attain sustainable development and to improve the quality of life for people all over the world.” It also stressed that “basic sciences and emerging technologies respond to the needs of humankind by providing access to information and increasing the health and well-being of individuals, communities, and societies.” The successes and difficulties of the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic have been for two years a stark reminder of this importance of basic sciences, such as (but not limited to) biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and anthropology.
The vote is the result of the mobilization of the international scientific community, led since 2017 by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), CERN (The European Laboratory for Particle Physics), and 26 other international scientific unions including IUPAC, and by research organizations from different parts of the world, under the auspices of UNESCO.
Christopher Brett said: “The proclamation of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development is the culmination of a process in which IUPAC, as a founding partner of IYBSSD, has been involved since the beginning. It will give a unique opportunity for promoting the basic sciences and their importance, emphasising the crucial role of Chemistry and Chemistry’s interdisciplinary nature at the cutting edge of fundamental research through to education and outreach.
The IYBSSD2022 will be officially inaugurated with an opening ceremony 1 July 2022 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Events and activities will be organized around the world until 30 June 2023.
Read the full release from the UN at https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/ga12391.doc.htm.
Contact Michel Spiro, <michel.spiro@iybssd2022.org> president of the Steering Committee for IYBSSD2022, or Luc Allemand, <luc.allemand@iybssd2022.org> secretary general of IYBSSD2022
IUPAC Representatives: Laura L. McConnell, <laura.mcconnell@bayer.com> and Zhigang Shuai <zgshuai@tsinghua.edu.cn>
©2022 IUPAC & De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For more information, please visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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