International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development: 2022-2023

The Year helps highlight the crucial role of basic sciences for sustainable development and emphasize their contributions to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Background

Basic sciences have an important contribution to make to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They provide the essential means to meet crucial challenges such as universal access to food, energy, health coverage and communication technologies. They enable us to understand the impact of the currently nearly 8 billion people on the planet and to act to limit, and sometimes even to reduce it: depletion of the ozone layer, climate change, depletion of natural resources, extinction of living species.

The International Science Council is proud to support this International Year, organized under the leadership of the ISC Member International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).

Activities and impact

• 2 December 2021: The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming the Year.
• 8 July 2022: Watch the recording of the Opening Ceremony of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development held at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters.
• February 2023: The ISC co-organized a series of distinguished lectures on basic sciences and how they lead and shape our paths toward sustainable development.
• December 2023: After almost two years of celebration of the importance of basic sciences for sustainable development, the Closing Ceremony offered an overview of what happened, and the participants discussed how we will continue our action, especially in the perspective of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development 2024–2033.