The German Committee Future Earth (DKN) is an independent scientific advisory body of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) as well as a national contact point and platform for developments and activities within Future Earth, the international research programme for global sustainability, and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP).

The DKN fosters interdisciplinary, integrative sustainability research in a national and international context and thus promotes cooperation between the disciplines. The aim is to advance research activities that pave the way towards a globally sustainable development and society, tackle problems systemically and generate societally relevant knowledge. The DKN offers a platform for exchange and networking on sustainability research among researchers in Germany and promotes its further development. The DFG appoints the members of the DKN for periods of three years.

From 19 to 21 February 2025, the DKN hosted the Sustainability Science Summit in Berlin under the theme “Advancing Sustainable Development”. The conference report(externer Link) has been published on the DKN website and provides a detailed overview of the various sessions, panel discussions and activities at the summit. The conference continued the series of German Future Earth Summits organised by the DKN. It offered a platform for exchanging new scientific insights, identifying research needs and discussing aspects of research funding in the field of sustainability science. Approximately 250 participants from academia, public administration, funding institutions and politics took part in the summit.

During the summit, the DKN also published a statement on the urgency of sustainability research in the context of national and international developments and invited participants to sign the document. This statement(externer Link) is now also available in English. 

In October 2025, the DKN will also publish an article on the summit(externer Link) in the journal GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society. The article highlights the key moments of the conference and is available in advance on the DKN website.

Further Information

• German Committee Future Earth(externer Link) (DKN)
• Conference Report(externer Link)
• Article for GAIA(externer Link)
• Statement on Sustainability Science in German(externer Link) and English(externer Link)

Contact person at the DKN: Dr. Sebastian Sonntag, phone: +49 (0) 40 226 338 455, sebastian.sonntag@hereon.de(externer Link)

Contact person at the DFG Head Office: Dr. Christiane Joerk, Humanity and Social Sciences 2: Social and Behavioral Sciences, phone: +49 (228) 885-2451, christiane.joerk@dfg.de(externer Link)

Privacy Policy

We, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), take the protection of your personal data and its confidential treatment extremely seriously. Therefore, please refer to the DFG’s Privacy Policy(interner Link). If you intend to transmit personal data of third parties, please make sure to do so only if the necessary legitimation under data protection law exist. Before transmitting data of third parties to the DFG, please forward the DFG’s Data Protection Notice to the individuals affected (data subjects). If there is a legitimate interest not to inform individuals beforehand (e.g. for reasons of secrecy or in case of a nomination or candidate proposal), these individuals should be informed no later than at the time of publication.