Abstract for: System Dynamics & Sustainability: A Research Agenda for the Coming Decade(s)

With detrimental effects of climate change already here and appropriate action still lagging behind, work on sustainability that applies system dynamics is more urgent than ever. In July 2018, a number of researchers - mainly active in Europe - commenced an open dialogue on system dynamics and sustainability at emlyon business school in Lyon. The aim of that meeting was to assess how to increase system dynamics and sustainability research output and impact. Since then a network has emerged and, some members of the group have begun working on a number of collaborative initiatives around research, teaching, and grants. More ambitiously, discussions also have evolved around the value of more coordinated avenues for future system dynamics research. In this essay bundle, we present some of the ideas that we have developed on near future avenues for system dynamics research and applications in the domain of sustainability. The aim of this essay bundle is to initiate a dialogue about how the system dynamics community may achieve impact through coordinated accumulation of policy-relevant knowledge in the area of sustainability and to make progress on identifying those critical avenues.