Future Earth Engagement Committee
Call for applications
Deadline for submission: 14 March 2014
1. Background information 
a)	What is Future Earth?
Future Earth is a 10-year international research programme that will provide critical knowledge required for societies to face the challenges posed by global environmental change and to identify opportunities for transformations towards global sustainability. 
Future Earth is sponsored by the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability comprising of the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the Belmont Forum – the council of principals of the International Group of Funding Agencies for global environmental change research (IGFA), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations University (UNU), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as an observer.
Future Earth will answer fundamental questions about how and why the global environment is changing, likely future changes, the implications for human development and the diversity of life on Earth, and the opportunities to reduce risks and vulnerabilities, enhance resilience and innovation, and enable and guide transformations to prosperous and equitable futures.
Key characteristics of Future Earth include:
•	delivers science of the highest quality, encompassing new ideas and challenges from the scientific community and society at large, and integrating existing international global environmental change projects and related activities, coordinated by four major international research programmes (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, International Human Dimensions Programme, DIVERSITAS programme on biodiversity and ecosystem services and World Climate Research Programme);
•	solutions-oriented research to address policy needs at different scales, and fundamental societal questions regarding global environmental change and pathways toward sustainable futures;
•	interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, bringing together disciplinary strengths from across the natural and social sciences, engineering and humanities, and engaging stakeholders across the public, private and voluntary sectors in defining and delivering research (co-design and co-production);
•	mobilizing capacity among scientific and other stakeholder communities, including at regional and national levels, to strengthen integrated research for sustainability and to increase the impact of research in decision-making processes.
Future Earth is led by a multi-stakeholder Governing Council, advised by a Science Committee and an Engagement Committee, and supported by a dedicated Secretariat with regional components.
These core elements of Future Earth are described in more detail in the Future Earth Initial Design report. The report can be downloaded here: 
http://www.icsu.org/future-earth/media-centre/relevant_publications/future-earth-initial-design-report 
b)	Future Earth’s early implementation
Steps have been taken to establish the governance structure of Future Earth at this first stage of the implementation of the programme. During the interim operating phase (2013 to 2014) the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability acts as the Governing Council. The Governing Council is the main decision-making body of Future Earth and is responsible for the overall strategic direction, assisted by the Science Committee and the Engagement Committee.
The Science Committee [http://www.icsu.org/future-earth/who/future-earth-science-committee], chaired by Mark Stafford Smith, Science Director of Climate Adaptation Flagship at CSIRO, was appointed in June 2013. An interim Engagement Committee, chaired by Sir Robert Watson, vice-chair of IPBES, has also been appointed [http://www.icsu.org/future-earth/who/engagement-committee] until the end of 2014. Its role is three-fold:
1.	Providing strategic advice from a user perspective on Future Earth research, engagement, and other activities;
2.	Supporting the initial implementation of Future Earth, in particular by supporting its work with stakeholders; and
3.	Developing recommendations on the roles and responsibilities of the Engagement Committee and advising on the establishment of the full Committee.
Frans Berkhout has been appointed as director to lead the interim Secretariat, hosted by ICSU for 18 months (ending in December 2014), to move forward the implementation of Future Earth while the selection of the permanent Secretariat of Future Earth is ongoing. 
2. The need for an Engagement Committee
a)	Description of the Engagement Committee 
Future Earth is committed to nurturing interactions between science and society at all levels on sustainability issues, and will build upon existing initiatives for stakeholder engagement in global environmental change research. It is essential that Future Earth draws on experience and know-how from other sectors, and brings together expertise, leadership, and creative thinking on how to:
1.	Co-design, co-produce and co-deliver research for sustainability; and 

2.	Conceive of new ways to generate useful knowledge, working with stakeholders in society. 
The Future Earth Engagement Committee is a strategic advisory group whose primary purpose is to promote in-depth and innovative interactions between science and society to address global environmental change and transform towards global sustainability. Such interactions must be fostered throughout the process of knowledge production to ensure that Future Earth delivers the knowledge that society needs. They include co-design of research agendas, co-production of knowledge, and co-dissemination of perspectives, evidence and knowledge claims in government, business and civil society, so that scientific knowledge makes a larger contribution to societal debate and decision-making.
Working together with the Future Earth Science Committee and the Secretariat, the Engagement Committee will advise the Governing Council on research priorities for Future Earth, will help to identify key stakeholders at the global, regional and national levels, will advise on how best to engage societal stakeholders with Future Earth science, and will provide leadership in bridging the gap between knowledge and solutions for sustainable development. 
Members of the Engagement Committee should serve in an individual capacity and will be chosen on the basis of their expertise and experience. They will not represent an organization, sector of activity or particular vested interests.
Such a committee is rather novel in the global change research community, and members would have a commitment to learning from experience, and help promote a culture of engagement across research and stakeholder communities as the Committee’s work develops. 
b)	Composition
The Engagement Committee will comprise of approximately 18 members, including chair(s), appointed for an initial period of two years, renewable once, though it is expected that the period of renewal will vary across the membership to allow for a staggered evolution of the committee membership. The chair(s) will be selected at the same time as the other members. Candidates are invited in the application template to indicate whether they would like to be considered for the chairmanship of the Committee.
c)	Working modalities
The Committee will typically meet twice a year, at the same time as the Science Committee, to ensure coordination and dialogue. It will be able to develop task teams and working groups to address specific issues related to engagement.
Between meetings, the Committee will work in close collaboration with the Secretariat (monthly teleconferences, emails). As with the Science Committee, the Engagement Committee is expected to operate primarily through consensus building among its members. 
The Future Earth Secretariat will provide overall support to the Engagement Committee, and will implement engagement and outreach activities, working together with science and stakeholder communities. 
The specific working modalities will be further defined with the committee members once appointed. 
3. Selection Process
a)	Principles for the establishment of the EC:
Future Earth aims to provide an arena for constructive debate about open and effective approaches to stakeholder engagement, allowing for a diversity of experiences and viewpoints to be represented on the Engagement Committee. The Engagement Committee will include practitioners of science-society interactions on issues related to sustainability, to complement the experience and expertise of the Science Committee in research on global environmental change. 
b)	Criteria for selecting members
Members of the Engagement Committee will be selected against the following criteria:
1.	Affiliation to one or more of the following stakeholder groups:

o	Public policy-making: Governments and public administrations are responsible for managing and balancing the short- and long-term well-being of their citizens, business, environments and resources, and make use of science in their work. Future Earth should work at supra-national and international levels, as well as with regional and local partners to support more specific needs. 
o	International development: International development organisations focus on promoting social and economic development in low-income countries. Organisations with a stake in international development include civil society organisations, academic and research institutions, governments, faith-based organisations, indigenous peoples’ movements, foundations and the private sector.
o	Business and industry: This sector supports the majority of the world’s research and development and is a critical group of stakeholders to be engaged in Future Earth. Especially relevant business sectors include: primary and secondary productive industries (e.g. mining, manufacturing, agriculture and construction), financial, health and other services, and consumer-focused businesses such as retail and media. Industry organisations covering a broad range of interests could potentially represent these in Future Earth at the global level.
o	Science-policy fora: Organisations at the interface between science and policy assess the status of scientific evidence and make it available as policy-relevant information. These include integrated assessments such as the Ozone Assessment, IPCC, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and IPBES. Global assessments will be a major user of Future Earth science.
o	Civil society: These are groups organised independently from governments and governmental institutions. The non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have taken over many roles traditionally the responsibility of governments. NGOs have also been instrumental in national and international policy negotiations and become more active in knowledge production and dissemination. All these accomplishments increase the relevance of these actors to Future Earth. 
o	Funders (public and private): National research funders support innovative disciplinary and interdisciplinary academic research. Increasingly there is a role for private foundations and philanthropists in supporting research and action in response to global environmental change and sustainability. Deeper engagement with the full range of funders of global change science and engagement is vital for Future Earth.
o	Media: Communication intermediaries and organisations that use both traditional and electronic means to gather and distribute information are central to the broader influence of any activity - scientific, corporate, financial, cultural, industrial, political or technological. The media landscape is changing and will continue to evolve during the lifetime of Future Earth. It is not just an outlet for communication, but also part of the knowledge production process itself and can help broker messages between the local and global scales and between different stakeholders.
o	Engineering: Many solutions and adaptations to global environmental change will have a technological component. Understanding the potential for technological breakthroughs, and the risks associated with emerging technologies is important across the three Future Earth themes.
o	Education: Knowledge about global change and sustainability is frequently complex and controversial. Science literacy and the capacity to participate in debate and action on global change and sustainable development needs to be fostered at all levels of international society. Expertise and experience in education will be an important asset for the Engagement Committee.
2.	Strong experience in addressing environmental change and sustainability issues at different scales, from the local to the global scale.
3.	Experience in engaging different stakeholder groups successfully, including the science community.
4.	Well-networked at the international or regional level to support the implementation of the Future Earth’s vision but also to provide support to the co-design of research on the ground.
5.	Vision for Future Earth to be an inclusive and action-oriented engagement platform on science for global sustainability.
6.	Interest in working in collaboratively across sectors and cultures.
The Selection Committee will ensure the Engagement Committee is balanced in terms of gender and geography.
c)	Process
The present call is a global search process open to both individuals who would like to apply, as well as to individuals or organisations wishing to nominate individuals. Applications or nominations should be submitted in English using the template below and emailed to contact@futureearth.info by 14 March 2014.
The process to establish the Engagement Committee is managed by the Science & Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability and facilitated by the Future Earth interim Secretariat. Members of the Engagement Committee will be appointed by the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability, acting as the interim Governing Council of Future Earth. The Engagement Committee is expected to be appointed in June 2014.

Annex 1
Future Earth Engagement Committee
Draft Terms of Reference
Adapted from the Future Earth Initial Design report (2013)
The Future Earth Engagement Committee is a strategic advisory group whose primary purpose is to ensure that Future Earth is a genuine platform for international science engagement which will deliver the knowledge that society needs. It will focus activities and strategy at the international level. It will provide formal links to international assessments processes and agencies. It will provide advice and recommendations on how to develop new links with stakeholder groups not traditionally engaged with the global change community, thereby building a new constituency for Future Earth knowledge. 
Over time, effective stakeholder engagement should ensure that Future Earth provides more relevant and informed guidance and solutions for a more sustainable society in which research is co-designed with end-users.
Such a Committee is rather novel in the global change community, so the Committee should be viewed as a work in progress whose functioning and structure may evolve over time. Its main functions are:
•	To provide strategic guidance on involving stakeholders throughout the entire research process from co-design to dissemination and on involving the science community in societal arenas with the goal to ensure that Future Earth produces the knowledge society needs.
•	To advise and provide recommendations to the Science Committee and the Governing Council on research priorities that are relevant for society, notably by assessing where knowledge gaps exist for decision-makers and stakeholder groups. 
•	To agree and oversee the Future Earth engagement and communication strategy. Notably by providing strategic guidance on stakeholder engagement, communications and outreach. To find new ways of fostering and nurturing a culture of engagement, partnership and constructive debate between competing visions of the future. This will include providing strategic links into international assessments and processes (e.g. IPCC, IPBES, SDGs).
•	To provide advice on fund-raising activities and fund-raising strategy, especially for non traditional funding sources (such as foundations for example)
•	To ensure relevance and input to major intergovernmental processes such as the SDGs.
•	To work closely with the Science Committee to make sure that the principles of co-design are embodied in projects and programmes.
•	To initiate, propose and endorse open calls for Future Earth activities from stakeholders. The activities would be officially branded as part of Future Earth and could become a model for engagement with a broad group of stakeholders. Such activities could include reports, fast-track research and co-branded research with private sector entities.
•	To provide technical guidance to the private sector on global sustainability. To facilitate the co-design of sustainability solutions with the private sector ensuring its engagement also in the production and scaling up of these solutions.
•	To develop task teams and working groups on constituencies, processes, assessments or themes.
•	To provide strategic guidance to Future Earth national committees on engagement at a national level with funders, policy, research and other stakeholders. 
The Engagement Committee will have the same status and priority as the Science Committee, and the two will work closely together to provide advice and recommendations to the Governing Council. It will help the Science Committee to advance its objectives by ensuring linkages with different stakeholders via an ongoing, two-way exchange of information.
The Engagement Committee (like the Science Committee) will report directly to the Governing Council, and is accountable to the Governing Council.
The Engagement Committee can challenge recommendations of the Science Committee, but cannot reject any scientific proposal, as such decisions ultimately rest with the Governing Council.
The Engagement Committee will typically meet twice a year, at the same time as the Science Committee to ensure coordination and dialogue.

Annex 2
Application form

Applications or nominations should be submitted in English using the template attached and emailed to contact@futureearth.info by 14 March 2014. 

Title		First name		Last name		
Year of birth		Gender		
Address		Country		
Nationality		
Phone		Fax		
Email address		

With which stakeholder groups would you most strongly identify? Specify first choice and second choice (if any)	
Science-policy interface		
Policy-making community		
International development organizations		
Engineering		
Education		
Funders		
Business		
Civil society		
Media

Background
Current position
(maximum of 10 lines)		
Previous positions (maximum of 10 lines)

	
Main fields of expertise (maximum of 15 lines)	

	
Experience in stakeholder engagement
(maximum of 15 lines)	

	

Motivations
Your vision for a successful science-society dialogue in Future Earth
(maximum of 20 lines)	

	
Would you like to be considered for the chairmanship?
(maximum of 5 lines)	

	

Section for nominating organisations (optional)
Nomination submitted by: 
Title		First name		Last name		
Email address		
Organisation		
Relationship to nominee:		

Statement from nominating organisation:
(maximum of 10 lines)