Special Issue "Biotechnology and Sustainable Development"

Guest Editor
Dr. Philipp Aerni
World Trade Institute, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 6, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland; and Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich, Sonneggstrasse 33, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Website: http://www.afee.ethz.ch/people/Associated/aernip
E-Mail:
Phone: +41 44 632 53 08
Fax: +41 44 632 10 86
Interests: agricultural biotechnology; sustainable agriculture; political economy; environmental economics; stakeholder attitudes; consumer behavior; science and moral education

Dear Colleagues,

Technological change is often portrayed as a threat to sustainable development because it creates risk and uncertainty and makes social planning difficult. This politically popular rhetoric starts from the baseline assumption that nature conservation is better than technical innovation. But this defensive view might even pose a bigger risk for a sustainable future on this planet because the practices and technologies we use today might not be able to cope with the sustainability challenge we will face in the near future. An experimental approach is required to find out how economic growth can be reconciled with social and environmental sustainability through technological innovation. In this context, the modern tools of biotechnology have a great potential. They could play an important role in climate change mitigation (e.g. nutrient-efficient plants) and adaptation (e.g. drought-tolerant plants), renewable energies, biodegradable products, agro-biodiversity conversation, rural development and global food security.

Yet, the success of biotechnology depends on adequate institutional support that encourages public and private actors to collaborate in efforts to address sustainability problems and to tailor the technology to local needs. At the same time, it requires a progressive view in science. Such a progressive view of sustainable development unites social scientists, ecologists and molecular biologists in their joint objective to combine the potential of new technologies with existing sustainable practices.

In this issue, we would like to invite scholars who have embraced such an interdisciplinary and progressive approach in their research activities and have achieved promising results. Moreover we welcome contributions from practitioners who have been involved in successful public-private partnerships in the field of biotechnology and sustainable development.

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 500 CHF (Swiss Francs). English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• technological change
• institutional economics
• rural development
• agro-ecology
• genetic engineering
• biotechnology
• industrial ecology
• public-private partnerships
• climate change
• food security