Sustainable Economies in the Era of Digitalisation – SEED

Unlike past technological revolutions, digital transformation comes at a time of profound interdependent changes including global warming, migration, an aging population, and new geopolitical tensions. It will cause great stress on our economic, social and political systems, creating some preconditions for sustainability, but undermining others. This project aims to understand the interlinkages between digitalisation and sustainable development, and the contextual factors that can maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the digital transformation. First, we will develop a conceptual and analytical framework in which technology mutually interacts with the sustainability paradigm, operationalised through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework proposed by the United Nations, and public opinion and institutions act as mediators of these relationships. Our framework will guide the empirical work, made possible by new data and indicators of the digital ecosystem and its convergence with sustainable development. Data and indicators will come from a variety of sources, including scholarly literature, patents, policy documents, social media and online video-sharing platforms. Second, we will disentangle and quantify the positive and negative causal impacts of digital transformation on the achievement of the SDGs. Third, we will examine the mediating role of institutions in promoting the impact of digitalisation on the SDGs, on the one hand, and reducing the risk of fake-news and misconceptions against science, on the other. The project will provide us with a clear understanding of how science, policy and the public can harness the power of digital technologies to bring peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and in the future.