The ability of national governments to set and implement policies that protect biodiversity is currently facing widespread scepticism within the conservation movement. Here, we review the literature from several disciplines to outline a positive agenda for how the global conservation movement can address this. We combine the strengths of the people-centred and science-led conservation approaches to develop a framework that emphasizes the importance of ecological infrastructure for the long-term prosperity of human societies in an ever-changing world. We show that one of the major goals of the conservation movement (enhancing global ecological infrastructure to end species and ecosystem loss) remains central and irreplaceable within the broad sustainable development agenda. Then, we argue that the conservation community is now more prepared than ever to face the challenge of supporting societies in designing the ecological infrastructure they need to move towards more sustainable states. Because it is where global and local priorities meet, the national level is where impactful changes can be made. Furthermore, we point out two priorities for the conservation movement for the next decade: (1) substantially increase the amount of financial resources dedicated to conservation; and (2) advance the next generation of policies for ecological infrastructure.

Global sustainability challenges and their impact on society have been well-documented in recent years, such as more intense extreme weather events, environmental degradation, as well as ecosystem and biodiversity loss. These challenges require a united effort of scientists from multiple disciplines with stakeholders, including government, non-government organizations, corporate industry, and members of the general public, with the aim to generate integrated knowledge with real-world applicability. Yet, there continues to be challenges for these types of collaboration. In this commentary, we describe processes of collective unlearning that serve to decenter academia in collaborations leading to a more equitable positioning of practitioners engaged in collaborative global sustainability research.

Weed scientists face complex and difficult challenges. Within our discipline, we must increase the sustainability of current weed management approaches and help respond to invasive plants as a component of global change. There also are major challenges that we share with other agricultural disciplines, such as mounting comprehensive efforts to address the problems of current agriculture. We believe that any effective response to these challenges will require public work, i.e., projects in which a diverse group of people work together—across lines of difference (professional, cultural, etc.)—to produce broad-based, systemic innovations that meet complex challenges. We propose that weed scientists should join relevant public-work projects by practicing “public scholarship.” We define public scholarship as original, creative, peer-evaluated intellectual work that is fully integrated in a public-work project. By full integration we mean that the scholar's work serves to fuel the social (i.e., collective) learning of the public-work group. This condition requires that the scholar be a full participant in the group rather than just being in a consultative or advisory role. We present several case studies of weed scientists practicing public scholarship. These scientists found this mode of scholarship to be a highly effective means by which to address their professional priorities. Barriers to the practice of public scholarship include the lack of relevant guidelines and norms within academic culture, e.g., with regard to quality-assurance standards. But public scholarship offers weed scientists a new way of responding to increasingly urgent demands to show that our work effectively produces public value in return for public investment. We believe that graduate programs in weed science should begin to offer students opportunities to learn skills that are relevant to public scholarship.

Sustainability science has developed from a new research field into a vibrant discipline in its own right, with scientific conferences, journals and scientific societies dedicated to its pursuit. Characterized more by its research purpose than by a common set of methods or objects, sustainability science can be subdivided into the more traditional disciplinary-based science for sustainability and the transdisciplinary science of sustainability. Whereas the former consists of more descriptive, analytical and basic science, the latter is characterized by reflexivity and applicability; on a meta level, the emergence of the latter can be understood as a new step in the evolution of science. This review provides an overview of the state of sustainability science, identifying action orientation, integrated assessments and interdisciplinarity as overall characteristics. The review also focuses on methodological issues, highlighting differences in project organization and management, and the ways in which stakeholder participation can be organized in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects. Sustainability science is recognized as essential for progress towards sustainability, and as an opportunity to bring science closer to the people, requiring significant changes in the way science is organized and conducted.

Working across knowledge-based research programmes, rather than institutional structures, should be central to interdisciplinary research. In this paper, a novel framework is proposed to facilitate interdisciplinary research, with the goals of promoting communication, understanding and collaborative work. Three core elements need to be addressed to improve interdisciplinary research: the types (forms and functions) of theories, the underlying philosophies of knowledge and the combination of research styles; these three elements combine to form the research programme. Case studies from sustainability science and environmental security illustrate the application of this research programme-based framework. This framework may be helpful in overcoming often oversimplified distinctions, such as qualitative/quantitative, deductive/inductive, normative/descriptive, subjective/objective and theory/practice. Applying this conceptual framework to interdisciplinary research should foster theoretical advances, more effective communication and better problem-solving in increasingly interdisciplinary environmental fields.