Sustainable Research Agenda of the International Journal Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education: Current Developments and Future Perspectives

The research on sustainability has already become the agenda of the day. International teams of scholars have already been addressing various themes of sustainability in sufficient depth and breadth by focusing attention on social, ecological, economic, political, and cultural aspects of sustainability. By the use of the method of bibliometric literature review, the authors intend to analyse research on sustainability, and issues related to sustainable development and education during the last five years, as revealed in the Journal of UNESCO Chair on the Interplay of Tradition and Innovation in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at Daugavpils University, Latvia. The articles provide an extensive overview of the research agenda and show the scope of sustainability research that has broadened in scope, and is growing stronger. The article also shows the geography of sustainability challenges, including challenges addressed in practice and everyday life, reflection on methodologies for sustainability research, and institutional policy developments on sustainability. By evaluating sustainability pathways and approaches and by addressing challenges of smart governance, the article highlights the cases of good practice and challenges that need to be addressed. The article also highlights issues related to sustainability research that still remain unsolved and calls for continuous efforts of improvement and for deeper transdisciplinary processes. Challenges brought up by unsustainable consumption and an unpredictable intent as a way of life can not be solved by technological fixes but require deeper sustainability transitions, co-evolution, multi-actor involvement, long-term thinking, open-mindedness and tolerance of uncertainty.