Grand Challenges, as defined by Lewis Branscomb, are “technically complex societal problems that have stubbornly defied solution” (Branscomb). These issues plague society on a global scale and require a collaboration of ideas and disciplines to solve them. A number of issues can be considered grand challenges in the field of sustainable development. Since by nature grand challenges are intersectional, these issues are also challenges in many other fields. According to USAID there are eight grand challenges for development. They are: scaling off grid energy, combating zika, combating ebola, water security, reducing birth deaths, literacy, agriculture, and increasing political representation.

Both the Branscomb reading and the USAID reading discuss the ways in which we can address grand challenges and both reach the conclusion that science is key but science alone is not enough. Branscomb escribes how research into this issues simply has not been sufficient in solving these problems because science cannot be guided by a mere “invisible hand,” The goal of science is not to solve this issues, so without outside influence, how can we expect science to do so? Both readings agree that the best way to help science solve this issues is to steer science with policy. Policies, on a global and domestic level, must be tailored to addressing grand challenges and presenting solutions.

A key aspect of solving these issues is engaging the public to receive their interest and support. If these challenges are great enough, the solutions are ones that can change the face of the world for the better. Capturing the imagination of the common person is critical to creating policy focused on science and technology.

As I mentioned previously, grand challenges affect a variety of fields and areas of interest. Therefore the approach to solving them must be multidisciplinary. A governmental solution alone is not enough to address these issues. Global governance has long been the primary method by which global issues are solved but increasingly the private sector and non-governmental organizations have begun to play a more significant role in affecting change. To solve grand challenges will take input from transnational corporations, industry, non-governmental organizations, states, scientists, and a variety of other parties. These challenges create a number of stakeholders and thus challenges would be more easily solved by multistakeholder governance.

Grand challenges, by definition, are complex societal problems that have frustratingly defied solution (Branscomb, 2009). While these challenges are cross cutting, multidimensional, and permeate through all of society, they are not unsolvable. By capturing the public’s imagination, Grand Challenges can be solved through innovation and scientific, sociological, and technological breakthrough (Kalil, 2012). Some examples of Grand Challenges are finding energy sources that are reliable, curing cancer, improving healthcare for all people, and decreasing food insecurity around the globe.

Because of multidimensional, society encompassing nature’s, Grand Challenges are often taken on by governments and international governmental organizations like the United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU). The United States even has it’s own set of Grand Challenges that “help catalyze breakthroughs that advance national priorities.” In short, governments and international organizations can use Grand Challenges to pool resources, foster innovation, find solutions to major problems that can help elevate everyone.

A great example of the international community attempting to tackle a set of Grand Challenges was through the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) created at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. The MDGs set eight goals: eradicate extreme hunger and poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/aids, Malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development. Even though these goals were a step in the right direction to elevating all of society, I believe that there were some major blindspots. One, eight goals were not enough to tackle the entire world and account for international, national, and sub-national differences. Two, and the most discussed shortcoming during the lecture, the MGDs did not mention persons with disabilities (PWDs).

By not mentioning PWDs, the MGDs effectively excluded more than one billion people in the world living with some sort of disability (WHO/World Bank Report, 2011). The sheer number of PWDs throughout the world excluded from development efforts is enough to be problematic. By excluding about 15% of your population, you’re effectively saying they don’t matter and their needs aren’t valid enough to be met. What kind of society is that? Including PWDs at the table and elevating their freedoms is an elevation for all of society.

Before starting this class, I wasn’t aware that PWDs – 15% of the world’s population – have previously been excluded from development work. That was extremely surprising to me and I believe it’s a huge disadvantage that needs to be accounted for and righted. Moving forward, I believe this material and our discussions in class will help provide me with another lens to view international development and my academic efforts in my other classes.

Today’s grand challenges are exactly that. They are multi-dimensional, complex and far reaching issues that do not necessarily have a clear solution in sight. Louis Branscomb suggests many of these technically complex societal problems that have stubbornly defied solution should be addressed with a series of improvements or  by making processes more effective. Often times the emphasis is put on defining a solution to the grand challenges without necessarily giving credit to the discoveries, innovations or improvements that come out of the crucial brainstorming process.

Branscomb illustrated the importance of process rather than outcome in the context of solving the cancer problem. He explained that in the long-term process of diagnosing this grand challenge of finding a cure for cancer, the biomedical research community made discoveries in fields of immunology, cellular biology, genetics, yielding new ways of diagnosing and treating cancer that would never have followed from focusing on a more short-term, clinical research approach. There are benefits to looking at these grand challenges more as frameworks to be implemented and tested over time,  rather than issues that need resolving before an expiration date. Branscomb recognized the potential of  an this kind of intellectual environment that allows for curiosity  to light  new ideas for making the grand challenge easier and quicker to master.
It is important to remember this approach to grand challenges when we look at recent world development agendas such as the MDGs and the SDGs. Although much progress has been made leading up to 2015, the MDGs were not achieved in their deadline. Millions continue to be affected by grand challenges such as  hunger, aids, and lack of access to education after this 15-year development agenda. With the conclusion of the MDGs in 2015 we saw the expansion of the SDGs from eight goals to seventeen goals.The expansion and specification of the new development agendas goals could be seen as a result of the increased knowledge gained in the successes and failures of the MDGs. With the incompletion of the initial eight goals, and  processes of trial and error, people were able to better understand the complexity of these grand challenges facing our world today. They gained valuable insight into what strategies for evaluation and implementation worked and didn’t work, and recognized the need for a longer timeline. Although we did not complete the MDGs, the implementation process allowed for informed revisions to the way these grand challenges are approached in the SDG framework.

Society’s grand challenges are not a new phenomenon. They have always existed, but they have greatly evolved with time. Although the term “Grand Challenges” might seem daunting, it is important to remember that while these challenges are ambitious, at the same time they are also achievable (Tom Kalil). Thinking about the main issues that these challenges encompass, it can be hard to believe at times that these challenges will in fact be overcome. While things such as clean, affordable, reliable energy sources, high quality jobs and a cure for cancer, do not seem to be so out of reach they have stubbornly defied solution for quite sometime now (L. Branscomb). The key to making sure that these goals are achieved lie in the way we define them and measure our progress towards those ends. As White House’s Thomas Kalil states, it is critical that these challenges have measurable targets and a timeline for completion as well as a definition that is not too narrow.

When reading and thinking about these issues that humanity faces, the common belief seems to be that science is the solution. While I do not necessarily disagree, because ultimately I do believe science is going to be the thing that allows us to keep living our comfortable lifestyles while at the same time improving the world for all individuals, I believe science and education as a whole have to be done and taught from a different approach in order for more creativity and alternative thinking to enter the world of science. Mr. Branscomb argues that policy-promoting science needs to be more focused than just research and more creative than applied research, but I think it goes far beyond that. I believe our current education system is rather rigid and stiff and I do not think that it is conducive to the type of creative thinking we are going to need to overcome these challenges. I have faith that people will come together to find solutions and that furthermore they will be properly incentivized to do so, but I am worried that the solutions will not be as creative and innovative as we need them to be.

One last observation from this previous week’s discussion that left me rather disappointed was the fact that the MDGs did not include people with disabilities. Personally I was completely unaware of this, but given the fact that so many people live with disabilities, I cannot understand how they were “forgotten” by the entire international community. There might be more obstacles to achieving the set goals for the entire population but that is no excuse for entirely leaving them out. Just cause something is harder to achieve it does not mean you avoid it. I hope with time all of the SDGs will mention people with disabilities and that there will be major efforts to include them in all development projects.

There are many different types of challenges people face all over the world each and every day. Grand Challenges, however, typically encompass substantial issues that impact a large population and/or area. Although a formal universal definition has yet to be established, “Grand Challenges are ambitious but achievable goals” that require global acknowledgement and efforts to tackle (WHOSTP). I think the key word here is “achievable.” While these problems can be incredibly daunting, such as NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge, they are indeed considered feasible when all hands are on deck. Moreover, in attempts to solve Grand Challenges, positive social change is sparked as the “social contract” between science and society is enhanced via job creation, economic growth, and multi-sector collaboration (Kalil 2012). There is also a rhetoric shift from what is possible to what is necessary, creating a much more proactive and working dynamic.

At first I found it very interesting that the majority of the Grand Challenges listed on USAID’s website weren’t the same as the ones on The White House’s page, considering USAID is a government agency. However, as mentioned earlier there are a plethora of challenges and they can clearly fall into several categories. The White House naturally has national issues as its primary concern and priority, whereas USAID has a more global and developmental scope as its main interest. Since international development is my major’s thematic focus, I find USAID’s Grand Challenges particularly compelling. Grand Challenges for Development have explicit international engagement and look mainly to science and technology as a means for problem solving. Of USAID’s eight listed Global Challenges for Development, I was most surprised and intrigued by “Making All Voices Count” because it seemed quite progressive in acknowledging social injustices beyond what is considered basic necessities (USAID). Furthermore, my studies have been largely focused on the lack of accountability and transparency plaguing different world issues and their actors.

Although Grand Challenges are plentiful, it seems many are interrelated and could be tackled simultaneously as problem solving in one challenge would likely lead to problem solving in another. The first step in combatting Grand Challenges is research to understand the root of the problem. Then further research and innovation are necessary in order to discover and adapt alternatives and solutions. Because these challenges tend to be quite complex, trial and error is an expected and essential component, as well. I believe the Grand Challenge of finding and utilizing new energy sources is one of the most pressing world issues in sustainability and international development. We simply cannot afford or rely on continuing to use nonrenewable energy sources like oil. Already there has been significant development on renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, but I think they remain incredibly underused and are nowhere near their full potential impact. I believe there needs to be a complete shift in energy production from the extractive industry to one that utilizes the natural elements in order to tackle this Grand Challenge.

Throughout the readings and our discussion from the first week of class, one of the main ideas I understood about our world’s Grand Challenges is that in order to achieve sustainable and effective development, our goals must be ambitious, yet still achievable (Kahlil). Additionally, the contribution that science will have on societal developments, such as creating cleaner energy resources (one of our Grand Challenges), will not only aid in alleviating environmental issues, but will also allow for growth in other sectors of society, such as economic growth through the creation of jobs, as well as growth in technology innovation as new ideas can contribute to various new inventions. Thus, finding solutions to our Grand Challenges can only make way for a more productive and healthy society.

Additionally, the first week’s readings also referred to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals– or SDGs– which essentially target some of the world’s most detrimental issues, such as poverty and hunger. While the goal to eradicate (or mitigate) these issues by 2030 is a noble task, it does strike as a bit worrisome that these development goals seem too broad to really have any substantial meaning behind them. To create effective development solutions, I believe that every development plan should be tailored to the needs of individual communities in order to maximize the productivity of resources. Thus, the UN’s SDG’s would appear more achievable if the website perhaps gave a few examples of specific plans that they may have to reach different goals in various regions of the world.

Finally, at the start of this class, I was surprised to learn that I had never really been aware about the lack of responsibility that previous societal goals have taken on being inclusive of all members of society. It had never occurred to me that about 15% of our human population has some form of a disability which ends up not being accounted for in areas such as political representation, education, transportation options, and employment opportunities (Class Lecture). Not only is this a disadvantage for individuals with disabilities, but this is also a disadvantage to society as a whole since we are missing the opportunity for greater productivity in our communities. Such opportunities for productivity can come out of expanding the job market through greater inclusiveness (thus promoting greater economic growth), and additionally, increasing the focus on research for understanding disabilities and development as a means to promote technological innovation that may be beneficial to all members of society (UN Draft Resolution on Social Development), while also promoting social equality. I truly believe in and agree with Amartya Sen’s outlook on “development as freedom” (Class Lecture).

There are a number of daunting problems that are plaguing different parts of our globe. Some are easier to handle than others, although they are not impossible to overcome. Through out the assigned readings, I noticed that there was a common focus to the Grand Challenges that we are faced with and that is that these challenges are able to encourage and push forward new innovations, technological advances and even “tackle important problems” that are related to different sectors of our world; such as “health, education, the environment, national security and global development” (White House and Grand Challenges). I always believed that grand challenges posed a threat to our daily lives and cultures rather than give us new ways of dealing with different sustainable tasks at hand. Khalil’s statement that “grand challenges capture the public’s imagination” proves that certain obstacles can bring different communities together to help create a better inclusive sustainable development. I do agree with the readings that if a Grand Challenge is “too narrowly defined” will need a “technical solution” that can also “reduce the opportunity for new approaches” (Khalil 2012).

When reading about MDGs, I was not aware of what they were or their concepts and targets in regards to an inclusive sustainable development. The Millennium Development Goals seemed to have much more weaknesses than strengths, and their strengths also were their weaknesses (Millennium Development Goals). They were silent on the means in which to purse grand challenges and lacked fundamental approaches on how to deal with the “process of change from one state to the other” (Millennium Development Goals). I highly disagree with their “one-size fits all” assumption. Each country and community have their own set of unique challenges that they face and, even though they can be similar, some have to be dealt with in a completely different manner and with different types of innovations and technologies. So I find it incorrect to generalize all grand challenges to be the same and be dealt with in the same manner.

Within the field of International Relations, there are many challenges to be dealt with that require different sets of skills, knowledge and technology, and with grand challenges, this field requires a set of minds that are able to find new and innovative ways to achieve the goals of the challenges at hand. It is essential to rethink the importance of what goes with the process of international development. This class will give me the tools necessary to better understand inclusive sustainable development and what are ways that I can contribute to creating a more inclusive environment.