The objective of the Sustainability Performances, Evidence and Scenarios (SPES) project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme, is to better understand the interconnections between economic growth, human flourishing, and sustainability. The ambition is to equip policymakers with information that will guide their strategies for achieving sustainable human development, using new evidence about past, present and future performances of the sustainability transition.
The SPES project will aim to bridge productivity and growth with inclusiveness and environmental protection, to ensure shared prosperity and wellbeing for all. It will do so by focusing on five pillars of sustainable human development:
- Productivity, defined as aiming for an efficient use of economic, human and natural resources through innovation;
- Equity for all, defined as fostering equal political, economic, social and cultural opportunities for all;
- Sustainability, defined as aiming to avoid, reduce, and adjust to climate change and ensuring the protection, restoration and improvement of the environment;
- Participation and empowerment, defined as enabling citizens, social groups and communities to be active agents of their future.
- Human security, defined as the sum of capabilities “freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to live with dignity”.
The SPES project will tackle this question through extensive, collaborative research, focusing on the following four axes:
- Concepts and meanings, by dealing with the debates, theories, and narratives on sustainable human development to find a common ‘framework’ for researchers, policy-makers, and stakeholders active in this field.
- Measurement frameworks and methods, by dealing with the debate on beyond GDP indicators to measure sustainable human development;
- Transition performances, by dealing with the analysis of past, current, and future performances of the sustainability transition;
- Policies, by dealing with possible policy implications for integrating productivity, equality, sustainability, and participation.