Call for papers for a new book: COVID-19: Paving the Way for  More Sustainable World

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe human suffering, and to substantial damages to economies round the globe, affecting both, rich countries and developing ones.

The aftermath of the epidemic is also expected to be felt for sometime. This will also include a wide range of impacts in the ways sustainable development is perceived,  and how the principles of sustainability are practicised.

There is now a pressing need to generate new literature on the connections between COVID-19 and sustainability.  This is so for two main reasons.

Firstly, the world crisis triggered by COVID-19 has severly damaged the world economy, worsening poverty, causing hardships, and endangering livelihoods. Together,  these impacts may negatively influence  the implementation of sustainable development as a whole, and of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in particular. These potential and expected impacts need to be better understood and quantified, hence providing a support basis for future recovery efforts.

Secondly, the shutdown caused by COVID-19  has also been having a severe impact on teaching and research, especially -bot not only- on matters related to sustainability. This may also open new opportunities (e.g. less travel, more internet-based learning), which should be explored further, especially in the case of future pandemics, a scenario which cannot be excluded.

The book project “COVID-19: Paving the Way for a More Sustainable World” will meet these perceived needs. Produced by the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP)

https://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/ftz-nk/programmes/iusdrp.html  and the European School of Sustainablity Science and Research (ESSSR) https://esssr.eu/,

it intends to gather and disseminate opinions  viewpoints, studies, forecasts and practical projects which illustrate the various pathways sustainability research and practice may follow in the future, as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepares itself to the possibilities of having to cope with similar crisis.

The list of themes of interest to the book include, but are not limited, to:

COVID-19 and sustainability teaching

COVID-19 and sustainability research

COVID-19 and sustainable tourism

COVID-19 and sustainable trade

COVID-19 and corporate responsability

COVID-19 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Further themes may be considered, and could discussed with the editorial team.

The book will be published as part of the World Sustainability Series, the world´s leading peer-reviewed book series on matters related to sustainable development: https://www.springer.com/series/13384.

Expressions of interest, initially consisting of a 200 words abstract containing the full names and contact details of the authors, should be sent to iusdrp@ls.haw-hamburg.de by 30th April 2020. Full papers are due by 30th July 2020. Further details will be discussed with the authors whose abstracts have been accepted. The current shutdown means that colleagues may have the time to write their abstracts now and until 30th April, before their institutions reopen. This is a window of opportunity to produce high level manuscripts, at a very special time.

Rgds,