Stockholm Environment Institute
Self-Description of the Stockholm Environment Institute
SEI is an independent, international research institute specializing in sustainable development and environment issues. It works at local, national, regional and global policy levels.
The SEI research programmes aim to clarify the requirements, strategies and policies for a transition to sustainability.
These goals are linked to the principles advocated in Agenda 21 and the Conventions such as Climate Change, Ozone Layer Protection and Biological Diversity. SEI along with its predecessor, the Beijer Institute, have been engaged in major environment and development issues for a quarter of a century.
It seeks to be a leader in the creation of a new field of sustainability science aimed at understanding the fundamental character of interaction between nature and society, and to contribute to the capacities of different societies to build transitions to more sustainable futures.
Mission
SEI’s mission is to support decision-making and induce change towards sustainable development around the world by providing integrative knowledge that bridges science and policy in the field of environment and development.
The SEI mission developed from the insights gained at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm (after which the Institute derives its name), the work of the (Brundtland) World Commission for Environment and Development and the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development.
The Institute was established in 1989 following an initiative by the Swedish Government to develop an international environment/development research organisation.
Implementation
The Stockholm Environment Institute is distinctive in a number of respects. The Swedish Government established the Institute with a strong mandate to provide intellectual and research leadership to develop sustainable development strategies and initiatives throughout the world.
SEI has established an enviable reputation as a non-profit and non-partisan research institute, as an honest broker in its handling of complex environmental and social issues, as a research institution committed to rigorous and objective scientific analyses in support of improved public policies, and as an agent of creative change in seeking global transitions to a more sustainable world. SEI brings substantial resources to this role.
Research Centres worldwide
SEI has research centres in Sweden, Estonia, the United Kingdom (York and Oxford), the United States and Thailand. Each of these centres brings a commitment to integrated analyses of complex problems, drawing upon the full range of scientific and policy expertise across the SEI centres.
Each centre has its own personality and foci of interests, and each operates with significant autonomy while participating in the five cross-cutting SEI research programmes. And each centre shares a common commitment to policy-relevant research, and to the goal that SEI should make a difference in the global quest for a more equitable and sustainable planet.
The processes of institute research and think-tank activities also have distinguishing features. SEI purposely selects major issues that act as impediments to creating more sustainable societies so that scientific progress has potential for shaping important human interventions and processes of change.
The SEI approach is typically highly collaborative and participatory, involving partners in the regions and places of research so that local knowledge and values are mobilized and explicitly considered. Projects are designed to incorporate the building of regional capacities and the strengthening of institutions so that the long-term capabilities of SEI’s collaborators are enhanced as part of the process.
Running through SEI programmes and efforts is an uncompromising commitment to high ethical standards for the conduct of research and the provision of policy advice.