@article{9e8d3f0a3b4548a6a515e26c59fce669,
title = "Bridging barriers to advance global sustainability",
author = "Irwin, \{Elena G.\} and Culligan, \{Patricia J.\} and Marina Fischer-Kowalski and Law, \{Kara Lavender\} and Raghu Murtugudde and Stephanie Pfirman",
note = "Funding Information: New metrics are needed that place value on deeply collaborative work, practice- oriented outputs and real-world impact. Interdisciplinary publications in high- quality journals should be explicitly incentivized and publishing with multiple co-authors from different disciplines recognized as a positive indicator of a researcher{\textquoteright}s ability to collaborate. Just as the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has broadened research outcomes to include products that are not academic publications, such as datasets and software, metrics for research productivity and impact should also be broadened to include non-academic contributions. For example, transdisciplinary research that leads to the co-creation of a peer-reviewed sustainability plan for a local community should be valued as highly as a refereed journal article. New forms of citation indices that measure uptake or impact of research outputs should be introduced. While measurement of long-term impact is challenging, shorter-term impacts, such as inclusion of research outputs in sustainability plans or policies, can more easily be tracked. Judgement of research contribution and impact could consider input from nonacademics engaged in sustainability work. Dossiers of hiring, tenure and promotion letters might include input from expert community stakeholders. High-status awards could be created by professional societies, governments and foundations to specifically recognize collaborative teams for their contributions to global sustainability. Academic honours, such as named chairs, university professorships and election to national academies, should validate the importance of convergence and transdisciplinary approaches. And academic scholars and administrators should accept the responsibility of legitimizing these new metrics both for their own work, and the work of others — in particular, early career scholars. If {\textquoteleft}individual contributions to scientific truths{\textquoteright} remains the standard for judging researchers, our institutions will perpetuate their failure to support global sustainability.",
year = "2018",
month = jul,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1038/s41893-018-0085-1",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "1",
pages = "324--326",
journal = "Nature Sustainability",
issn = "2398-9629",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "7",
}