The ecological crisis demands rapid change – and we at Nessling Foundation will be funding that change. In 2025, we will award a total of €3.85 million for research and activities that accelerate the sustainability transformation from overconsumption of natural resources towards a society that respects the boundaries of natural systems.
What does it mean to stand for air, water, and land in 2025?
When Maj Nessling founded the Nessling Foundation, the world was only beginning to awaken to the reality of environmental crises. The UN’s first environmental conference in Stockholm and the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth report brought environmental issues into the spotlight, but environmental research was still in its infancy.
Maj was a pioneer. She understood that protecting nature requires research and a society that values it. She gave life to our foundation with the idea of working “for the air, water, and land” by supporting research and actions that win public support for these goals.
Now, in 2025, we are living in a decade of decisive action. The climate crisis and biodiversity loss are deepening, the 1.5°C threshold was temporarily exceeded in 2024, and five biophysical tipping points are in the danger zone. Geopolitical and environmental policy tensions, the dismantling of environmental regulations, and funding uncertainties make building a sustainable future more difficult. At the same time, the status of scientific knowledge and the work of researchers are being challenged.
Maj’s original message remains strong: we need research that helps us understand the complexity of problems, and a society ready to put scientific knowledge into practice.
The sustainability transformation is our answer to the ecological crisis – and its root cause is overconsumption
At the Nessling Foundation, we believe that during this decisive decade we must carry out a sustainability transformation that recognises humanity’s complete dependence on natural systems, the networks of other species and habitats that support all life on Earth.
This transformation must occur in all areas of life: in culture, social structures, the economy, governance, production, consumption, and in people’s values, attitudes, and daily choices.
The root causes of the ecological crisis include accelerating and unevenly distributed overconsumption. Overconsumption has quadrupled since 1970, and is projected to grow by 60% from 2020 levels by 2060. Wealthy countries consume six times more natural resources per capita and cause ten times more climate impacts than low-income countries (UNEP 2024). Overconsumption is embedded deep within societal structures, even though public discussion often focuses on the role and choices of individuals.
We fund understanding and solutions for the sustainability transformation
In 2025, the Nessling Foundation will address this challenge by awarding €2.85 million in the general call for proposals to research and activities that support a sustainability transformation safeguarding natural systems. In addition, we will allocate €1 million in a separate Murros Call for projects aiming to move away from structural overconsumption.
In the general call, we are looking for innovative projects and active researchers and practitioners who build understanding and solutions for the sustainability transformation. We fund doctoral and postdoctoral projects, as well as one-year action projects. We do not expect a single project to cover all aspects of the transformation. Instead, we hope applicants will tell us:
- How does the project contribute to understanding or implementing a sustainability transformation that safeguards natural systems?
- What established structures, unsustainable assumptions, or practices of current society does the research or activity challenge?
Our perspective on the sustainability transformation can be used, complemented, or challenged – the definition of the transformation is open.
In the separate Murros-call, we will award €1 million to two consortium projects that provide understanding, fresh perspectives, and research-based solutions for moving away from structural overconsumption.
We hope these projects will help answer:
- What structures across society drive overconsumption, and how must they change?
- What economic, political, technological, and societal lock-ins drive overconsumption and prevent moderation?
- What kind of political steering would be needed for state-level action or for other major actors in society?
We want to support projects that promote collaboration across disciplines and sectors, and that ensure research reaches its users. We fund both multidisciplinary and single-discipline projects, as well as basic and applied research. Most importantly, we seek applicants who understand and can articulate the significance of their research for a sustainability transformation that safeguards natural systems.
We encourage active research engagement
Implementing the sustainability transformation requires that research findings do not remain solely in academic discussions but are actively brought into society. That is why we expect our funded researchers and other actors to be ready to engage with society, supported by a communication and engagement plan.
However, we do not expect applicants to already be communication or engagement professionals. What matters most is the motivation and willingness to share research results and related perspectives more broadly – to be part of building the sustainability transformation at the interface between science and society. We also do not leave applicants alone: through our Nessling Impact programme, we provide support for networking, communication, and engagement.
We look forward to your application!
