“The United Nations needs to be nimble, efficient, and effective. It must focus more on delivery and less on process; more on people and less on bureaucracy,” António Guterres,UN Secretary-General
In the face of current polycrises, the UN system is confronted with the need to shift towards a new version of an organization fit for 21st-century challenges and beyond. To continue to serve humanity, accelerate the achievement of the SDGs and long-term sustainability, safeguard the planet for future generations, and deliver relevant and system-wide solutions across the world, we must explore creative ways to strengthen UN capacities and change its modus operandi to more, agile, and future-forward practices.
Inspired by the practice of artistic residencies, the Beyond Lab Residency is a tool to promote creative, challenge-based collaboration with experts and thought leaders to go beyond conventional approaches to sustainability to explore and craft long-term solutions. It embodies a new version of the UN system as outlined in the UN Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda, advocating for a forward-looking multilateralism that is more diverse, impactful and networked.
Participating 'Innovators-in-Residence' from atypical multidisciplinary backgrounds will have the opportunity to investigate practical ways to incorporate principles of intergenerational equity and regenerative development into policymaking, expand available pathways to sustainable development beyond the mainstream, and reinforce the use of cross-cultural, intergenerational processes and cognitive and affective science in the multilateral system.
Broader understanding and uptake of the integrated, participatory futures design approach in sustainability policy and decision-making
Stakeholders involved in transforming and shaping the future agenda of long-term sustainable development
Creative and transdisciplinary methodologies and solutions are co-created for post-SDG vision beyond 2030
New approaches and perspectives from multi-stakeholder and transdisciplinary processes introduced to multilateral space.
A reinvigorated multilateral system that makes use of multidisciplinary and inclusive teams
Interested in finding out more? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via email.
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We are proud to welcome our first Innovator-in-Residence, Ms Nolita Mvunelo, a chemical engineer trained in South Africa, who now serves as a program manager at the Club of Rome.
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