Collective action for a sustainable future: turning skills into partnerships

The 2026 Global Sustainable Development Congress meets in Jakarta around one idea: collective action for a sustainable future. The phrase is a challenge. It asks us to stop working alone, to connect knowledge across fields, and to turn good intentions into real change.

This article sets out what that idea means at GSDC 2026, and how one hands-on workshop tries to put it into practice — by helping people build skills, partnerships and a real funding proposal in a single session.

What GSDC 2026 is really about

Several shifts run through the Congress. Together they describe a new way of working.

The SDGs are connected, not separate. Real problems do not respect silos. GSDC 2026 looks especially at how five goals reinforce each other:

• Climate action (SDG 13)
• Quality education (SDG 4)
• Health and wellbeing (SDG 3)
• Reduced inequalities (SDG 10)
• Partnerships (SDG 17)

Technology is a strong 2026 theme. The focus is on AI for sustainable development, digital education and learning systems, data-driven climate and health solutions, and responsible technology governance. The question is not whether to use AI, but how to use it well — and for whom.

Universities are change actors, not observers. This is a real shift in thinking. Universities are expected to act as living laboratories. Research must connect to policy and communities. And impact is measured by real-world change, not by publications alone.

Partnerships are the outcome. The Congress values cross-sector collaboration across education, industry and government; international consortium building; and the funding and scaling of solutions. Success at GSDC is not a good presentation. It is a new partnership and a funded initiative.

Solutions must work in the real world. From Jakarta, the Asia-Pacific emphasis is clear: climate resilience in Global South contexts, equity and inclusive growth, and scaling education and innovation across diverse systems. Ideas that only work in Europe are not enough. They must work in real, unequal global contexts.

A workshop built for collective action

Our hands-on workshop takes this theme literally. Its objective is collective action: to care about a shared problem, to integrate knowledge, and to do something about it — while developing personal and organisational skills along the way.

At its heart are the 8Cs: eight transversal, transferable skills, grouped as CARE, KNOW and DO.

• CARE — Collaborate, Communicate, Cultivate
• KNOW — Comprehend, Construct, Create
• DO — Coordinate, Catalyse

These are the skills that move a group from talking to building. No single person holds all eight at a high level. A network does. That simple truth is the reason we work in alliances.

Two parts: a personal plan, then collective action

The session has two parts.

Part 1 — a personal skills plan. Each person draws their own skill self-portrait. They rate the 8Cs honestly, see where they are strong and where they are growing, and decide who they need beside them. A live, shared report then reveals the collective skill of the whole room — the “smart skill” the group holds together.

Part 2 — collective action to develop skills. Participants form three groups and take on a role: Connected Researcher, Project Coordinator, or Network Leader. Each role owns one part of a real research proposal — Excellence, Impact, or Implementation. A real challenge goes at the centre of the table, and each group builds around it, practising its own cluster of skills.

We anchor the work in challenges that matter: Climate Action, and Creative and Inclusive Societies.

Grounded in real funding

To keep the work real, the groups design against open European calls under Horizon Europe Cluster 2 (Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society) — the main home for inclusive education, participation and citizenship, AI in society, youth and skills, and sustainability transitions.

The most direct match is TRANSFO-04, on digital tools, education and youth mental health. For teams thinking at the systems level, TRANSFO-02 addresses the social model, skills, productivity and adaptation to AI, climate and demographic change — ideal for scaling pilots beyond their first sites and positioning universities as living labs. Other Cluster 2 topics widen the choice, including global creative alliances that fund partners across the Global South, digital and media literacy, and competences for the green transition.

What the room leaves with

By the end of the hour, the group has three things to take forward:

• a proposal skeleton — the bones of a real bid
• new partnerships — the people to build it with
• a skills development plan — for each person and their organisation

That is collective action in miniature: shared care, integrated knowledge, and a concrete next step.

Why it matters

This approach tries to democratise research skills. It is open, transdisciplinary, and built for real, unequal contexts — not only for Europe. It measures success the way GSDC does: in partnerships formed and initiatives funded, with benefits that reach the global majority.

A sustainable future will not be designed by one discipline, one sector, or one country. It will be built by networks that care enough to act. That is the work GSDC 2026 invites — and the work this session begins.

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Framework: CARE–KNOW–DO and the 8Cs (Dr Alexandra Okada). Developed with the METEOR project (EU n.101178320) and the CONNECT / upSkill.Map community, in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Fun in Designing TRIPS pathways
Transformative Research Innovation Proposals: a challenge of
METEOR Programme: Methodologies for Teamworking in Eco-Outwards Research

1. What: Eco‑outwards transformative research in METEOR

METEOR is a Horizon Europe programme that reimagines doctoral education as a driver of societal transformation by developing early‑career researchers’ transversal skills in teamwork, collaboration and project design across disciplines and countries. Eco‑outwards research is the guiding principle: research is expected to radiate outwards from the individual scholar to broader ecosystems of people, institutions and environments, so that project results create tangible benefits beyond academia.

Within this frame, an eco‑outwards Theory of Change (ToC) starts from the transformative impacts METEOR seeks – more equitable, sustainable and resilient societies for people and planet. ToC is developed through backwards mapping. First, we identify the desirable future, expressed as the relevant impact. Second, we work backwards to specify the outcomes, outputs, activities and inputs that would make that impact achievable. Third, the resulting ToC map becomes a shared planning tool: it helps partners negotiate who will lead which activities, based on interests and expertise, and supports the development of a realistic schedule (for example, a GANTT chart).

Proposals are invited to articulate how their teams will move along this chain, showing how researcher development, collaborative practices and institutional conditions combine to produce outward‑facing, sustainability‑aligned change..

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2. Why: The need for eco‑outwards, engaging approaches

Doctoral training and early‑career research often emphasise individual excellence and publication metrics, while offering limited structured support for collaboration, societal engagement or mental wellbeing. At the same time, the challenges framed by the Sustainable Development Goals demand research that can navigate complexity, work across boundaries and co‑create solutions with diverse stakeholders.

Eco‑outwards proposals respond to this gap by positioning researchers as relational agents who connect knowledge domains, sectors and communities in order to generate positive social and environmental impact. By explicitly adopting a backwards‑mapped ToC, they demonstrate that impacts are not accidental by‑products but the result of deliberate design choices about how people will work together, learn from one another and translate insights into action.

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3. Who: Actors in the eco‑outwards ecology

In METEOR, the primary actors are doctoral candidates and early‑career researchers, who are supported to become “eco‑outwards” in both mindset and practice—connected researchers, project coordinators and network leaders who can operate confidently in transdisciplinary and intersectoral teams. Around them sits a wider ecology: academic supervisors, institutional leaders, NGOs, community groups, businesses, public bodies and international partners who co‑shape research agendas and share responsibility for impact.

Eco‑outwards proposals narrate how these actors will relate to each other over time: how peer mentoring groups will function; how cross‑institutional teams will co‑design projects; and how external partners will be involved not only as data sources but as co‑researchers, co‑educators and co‑owners of the knowledge that is produced. This “who” is therefore less a static list of stakeholders and more a description of a living, evolving community of practice.

In practical terms, using an eco‑outwards ToC means that, once the impact and main outcome pathways are sketched, teams deliberately bring all sectors linked to that impact into the conversation from the start: citizens and communities, enterprises, NGOs, government bodies, education providers and research centres. In METEOR, the primary actors are doctoral candidates and early‑career researchers, who are supported to become “eco‑outwards” in both mindset and practice—connected researchers, project coordinators and network leaders who can operate confidently in transdisciplinary and intersectoral teams.

Around them sits a wider ecology of academic supervisors, institutional leaders, NGOs, community groups, businesses, public bodies and international partners who co‑shape research agendas and share responsibility for impact. When designing their ToC, project teams are encouraged to map how these actors will work together over time—how peer‑mentoring groups will function, how cross‑institutional teams will co‑design projects, and how external partners will be involved not only as data sources but as co‑researchers, co‑educators and co‑owners of the knowledge that is produced—so that the “who” becomes a living, evolving community of practice rather than a static stakeholder list.

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4. When and How: CARE–KNOW–DO as the developmental spine

The when and how of eco‑outwards transformation in METEOR are organised around the CARE–KNOW–DO framework, which underpins the upSkill.Map competence instrument and the programme’s academies and online resources. CARE–KNOW–DO runs longitudinally through the METEOR journey: from initial online preparation and self‑assessment, through the in‑person academies, to subsequent proposal development and legacy activities.

• CARE is activated early, as participants reflect on their values, responsibilities and wellbeing in relation to global challenges and local contexts. Activities such as guided self‑assessment, narrative exercises and mentoring conversations help researchers recognise how issues of justice, equity and sustainability intersect with their own trajectories, laying the ethical and emotional foundations for collaboration and impact.

• KNOW becomes prominent as teams begin to explore knowledge ecologies: comparing disciplinary perspectives, integrating academic and practitioner insights, and engaging with open science and responsible research and innovation. Through seminars, peer‑learning tasks and collaborative inquiry, participants practise epistemic humility, learn to navigate uncertainty and build shared conceptual frameworks that are robust enough to inform serious proposals.

• DO crystallises during the academies and subsequent project development phases, where groups design and refine eco‑outwards research proposals aligned with the SDGs and Horizon Europe priorities. Here, engaging methodologies—interactive workshops, challenge‑based sprints, scenario design and co‑creation with external partners—enable researchers to translate CARE and KNOW into concrete plans, work packages and impact pathways that are both ambitious and feasible.

Because CARE–KNOW–DO is embedded across time, the ToC is not a one‑off planning tool but a living ecology: participants revisit and adjust their assumptions as their understanding of contexts, partners and opportunities deepens.

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5. So what? Lessons learned for eco‑outwards proposals

Framed in this way, METEOR’s eco‑outwards approach offers several lessons for transformative proposals. First, starting from impact and backwards‑mapping the ToC helps teams to be explicit about whose lives they hope to change, in what ways, and through which mechanisms of knowledge exchange and capacity‑building. This avoids the common trap of designing attractive activities that are weakly connected to societal outcomes.

Second, centring CARE–KNOW–DO demonstrates that researcher development is itself a pathway to impact: as individuals and teams become more reflective, more critically informed and more capable of acting collectively, they increase the likelihood that their work will make a meaningful difference in the systems they inhabit. Proposals that show this developmental logic—how participants move from inner alignment (CARE) through shared understanding (KNOW) to collaborative intervention (DO)—are better positioned to convince reviewers that transformation is possible, not merely aspirational.

Third, eco‑outwards narratives help institutions and funders see how investments in transversal skills, teamworking and engaging pedagogies can leave a durable legacy in doctoral education and research culture, beyond the lifespan of individual projects. When proposals tell this story clearly—linking what they are doing, why it matters, who is involved, when and how CARE–KNOW–DO will shape the journey, and so what in terms of societal and ecological futures—they contribute to METEOR’s broader ambition: to normalise research that is outward‑looking, ethically grounded and transformative in practice as well as in rhetoric.

 

Notes and Glossary

The verbs that research proposals typically consider, in increasing order of strength:

• Informing — the research provided input; the adopter made the decision. Honest but understates a measured-outcome case.
• Shaping — the research influenced the form of what was adopted. Stronger than informing; defensible for partnership cases.
• Enabling — the research made possible what otherwise could not have happened. Strong for cases where the research provided the conceptual instrument that the adopter then used.
• Embedding — the research has been incorporated into ongoing practice. Strong for durability claims.
• Reframing — the research shifted how the field thinks. Strong for conceptual impact.
• Underpinning — the research forms the foundation of what was adopted. Strong but risky if the foundation has other contributors (Lemann, Natura, PARC architecture).
• Driving / Transforming — the research caused the change. Strongest but requires sole-attribution evidence you do not have.