656 NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE | VOL 4 | AUGUST 2014 | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange opinion & comment COMMENTARY: From global change science to action with social sciences C. P. Weaver, S. Mooney, D. Allen, N. Beller-Simms, T. Fish, A. E. Grambsch, W. Hohenstein, K. Jacobs, M. A. Kenney, M. A. Lane, L. Langner, E. Larson, D. L. McGinnis, R. H. Moss, L. G. Nichols, C. Nierenberg, E. A. Seyller, P. C. Stern and R. Winthrop US eforts to integrate social and biophysical sciences to address the issue of global change exist within a wider movement to understand global change as a societal challenge and to inform policy. Insights from the social sciences can help transform global change research into action. S ystematic identifcation, characterization and prioritization of the greatest and most urgent risks we face from global change, along with the appropriate responses, are scientifc and societal grand challenges. A central issue confronting national and international research programs is the need to understand linked biophysical and social processes of change, and to do so in a way that supports societal responses to this change. Tis requires integrating the full range of disciplinary perspectives and contributions from across the global change research enterprise. Approaches to this integration have their lineage in a broad intellectual movement at least three decades in the making. Mooney and colleagues 1 ofer a fascinating historical perspective on the deepening connection between the social and biophysical sciences in US and international global change research programs. Te growth of this movement has paralleled the growth in understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change, as the important questions have evolved from global-scale enquiries, predominantly based in physical science, to place-based, ofen socio-ecological and socio-economic questions about what drives these changes, what is at risk, and how we might respond. Tis evolution has given rise to integrated bodies of knowledge such as the ‘sustainability’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘adaptation’ sciences 2–4 that share a number of common dimensions: they are problem focused, with research situated within specifc human decision contexts; they are interdisciplinary, in that they embrace multiple theoretical and methodological means of exploring an issue or question; and they are transdisciplinary, in that scientists and practitioners co-design and co-produce applicable research within an environment of sustained engagement. Tis integration is refected in recent IPCC reports 5 , the coalescence of multiple international research programs into Future Earth 6 and in national research eforts in countries such as Australia, the UK and Germany. Te most recent World Social Science Report 7 is entirely focused on the need for a social science framing of global environmental change and sustainability, aimed directly at mobilizing a fully integrated global change science around policy and action, as argued by Hackmann et al. 8 . Tis intellectual current is also refected in the most recent decadal strategic plan of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) 9 . Te USGCRP coordinates global change research across the US government, and its strategic plan, for the frst time, articulates an explicit vision of basic research in continuous dialogue with critical society-facing functions (Fig. 1). Te existing knowledge-base supports engagement and communication with diverse publics, informs planning and policy, and is synthesized in sustained assessment processes that both support decision-making and identify the next generation of research questions. Te plan has been praised for its nuanced understanding of how research can support and be supported by considerations of use, but concerns have also been raised about the practical challenges of implementing such a program 10–12 . Te USGCRP decadal plan recognizes the need to integrate contributions from across the breadth of the social science disciplines — for example, economists, geographers, demographers, sociologists, cognitive scientists, anthropologists and psychologists, among many others — into its future work. Tis is because it is people and their communities, institutions and governments, who are at the centre of the three main aspects of the global change challenge: that is, humans are the drivers of, are afected by, and have the capacity to respond to global change 8 . Crucially, the plan recognizes that social science research is both an important part of the integrated knowledge-base for understanding the causes and consequences of global change, and can also identify the principles that will help put this knowledge to work for society. Social science research has historically informed global change science in the US, beginning with a focus on human dimensions research topics, such as understanding land-use change and the development of integrated assessment models. Tere is certainly much work still to do to move from an understanding of immediate global change drivers, such as land transformation and greenhouse gas emissions, to a deeper insight into underlying causes, such as the behaviours and interactions of individuals, communities, markets, nations and all types of institutions. A fundamental challenge is bringing together the research work in the biophysical and social sciences communities through coequal intellectual partnerships. An interesting new direction, however, is the mainstreaming of this second role of the social sciences, that is, in elucidating the processes that turn knowledge into action. A central advance is a new understanding of how efective, science-based decision- support for global change-related problems rests on the collaboration and dialogue between scientists (of all disciplines) and practitioners, aimed at producing ©2014MacmillanPublishersLimited.AllRightsReserved.