Please find attached a UN call for scientists, engineers, economists and policy analysts to contribute to a UN report on the impacts of rapid technological change on the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You may want to consider the following types of contributions focused on one or more of the questions listed in this announcement below:
- Written, informal responses highlighting empirical evidence and your views grounded in the literature (peer-reviewed references and background papers); and/or
- Short science-policy briefs comprising abstract, outline of empirical facts and issues, and policy recommendations. The briefs are limited to a maximum of 1600 words including tables and figures. Annexes are not included in the word count. Upon review and acceptance, the brief will be published.
We are looking forward to your submissions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., as soon as possible and hopefully no later than 29 March 2018. Late submissions will be considered, but please let us know as soon as possible what you plan to submit and by when. All contributors will be acknowledged and submitted ideas will be considered.
This work aims to focus on rapidly emerging technologies that progress so fast and have such broad-ranging socio-economic and environmental impacts so they pose serious challenges for institutions to adapt. Examples include - but are not necessarily limited to - highly interdependent, emerging technology clusters in the areas of automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanomaterials, and various digital technologies. The present call is in follow-up to UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/72/242 on the “Impact of rapid technological change on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals” which requested the UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism to present its findings, with an evidence-based approach, at its 3rd Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation” (New York, 5-6 June 2018). An Expert Group Meeting in Mexico city from 26 to 27 April 2018 will be a milestone in the process.
Please feel free to share the call with relevant scientists, engineers, economists and policy analysts – within your organizations and beyond, including younger scientists and research students.