The DKN is an advisory board mandated by the DFG Executive Committee. The DKN’s mandate includes furtherance of the scientific sustainability agenda by identifying and composing strategically significant topics in sustainability research and integrating them into the international Future Earth and WCRP platforms. The DKN acts as the national contact point for international developments and activities implemented in the context of these international platforms/research programmes and accordingly unites the natural and social sciences. The DKN also assumes the task of helping shape Future Earth’s development process in a substantive and structural manner.

The DKN advises the DFG about which calls launched by the Belmont Forum, WCRP, Future Earth and similar calls it should participate in. In addition, the DKN fulfils the role of a national forum for the researchers involved in sustainability research and promotes interdisciplinary exchange that advances integrative sustainability research. It also assists in the dialogue with stakeholders from politics, business and society to make knowledge relevant to implementation available in a targeted manner. The DKN is currently serving in its fourth mandate period. Its spokesperson is climate scientist Daniela Jacob, director of the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht) and visiting professor at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Faculty of Sustainability.

The DKN is simultaneously one of the three institutions responsible for the Science Platform Sustainability 2030, which was launched by the German federal government to assist with implementation of its sustainability strategy.

The DFG provides a Scientific Secretariat to assist the DKN.

Your contact in the DKN Future Earth research secretariat is Dr. Sebastian Sonntag
(sebastian.sonntag@hzg.de).

• The DKN Future Earth website