Global environmental change is linked to and exacerbates other social, economic and political crises such as poverty and inequality. Global sustainability requires urgent action to protect the planet and ensure human equity, dignity and well-being. The social sciences need to research the human causes, vulnerabilities and impacts of environmental change more effectively and inform responses to the challenges society faces. Social scientists need to work with each other and with colleagues from the natural and physical sciences to deliver credible, useful knowledge to help solve the world’s problems.

Drawn from the more than 150 authors in the World Social Science Report 2013, the key messages and recommendations call for a new kind of social science – one that is bolder, better, bigger, different. There is a need to reframe global environmental change as a social process, infuse social science insights into problem-solving processes, encourage more social scientists to address global environmental change directly, and change the way the social sciences think about and do science to help meet the interdisciplinary and cross-sector changes society faces.