Q&A: How collective intelligence can contribute to the SDGs

Robert Laubacher, Associate Director of MIT:

Professor Thomas W. Malone, founder of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI), uses a very broad definition of collective intelligence. He says collective intelligence is when “groups of individuals act together in ways that seem intelligent.”

By this definition, collective intelligence has been around a very long time. Early historical examples include tribes on the savannah and ancient city-states. In the modern era, nation-states, corporations and global markets are all good illustrations of collective intelligence in action.

Web-enabled collective intelligence can tackle a very broad range of challenges. In some of our previous projects, we engaged with online groups using an online platform we developed to:

• generate creative new ideas to address climate change;
• gain insights into under-anticipated climate risks;
• consider how medicine and healthcare may evolve in coming decades; and
• identify key challenges presented by COVID-19 and potential ways the life sciences sector can respond.

The 2030 Compass Colab launches in April and will be open for approximately three weeks. It seeks to gain insights from a broad range of experts about potential synergies and trade-offs between the SDGs.

The experts will first be invited to identify factors that may cause SDGs to complement or conflict with one another depending on a specific region or state. For example, SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Action) are likely to complement each other in nations that rely on low carbon energy, but they will probably be in conflict in fossil fuel-dependent states.

After experts have identified factors that could influence the interaction between a pair of SDGs, they will then be invited to assign interaction scores, depending on whether a country or region has a high or low value on that factor. The scale used for these interaction scores was developed by SEI Executive Director Måns Nilsson and SEI scientists Nina Weitz, Henrik Carlsen and Kristian Skånberg.

Robert Laubacher: We welcome participants with experience in all aspects of sustainable development, from the international to the domestic level, and from all parts of the world. We particularly want experts working outside Europe and North America to take part, so we can achieve broad global coverage.

Participants will be part of a global collaborative effort to develop a deeper understanding of how making progress on particular SDGs can help or hinder making progress on others. We plan to credit participants who wish to be acknowledged on the 2030 Compass CoLab platform and in the publications that result from this effort.

We ask that participants spend 1-2 hours per week during the three-week exercise, contributing their ideas and reading and commenting on ideas submitted by others.

Contributions to 2030 Compass CoLab will be combined with two other data sources: 1) inputs from an expert panel and 2) quantitative analysis of SDG indicator historical data. All three data sources will serve as the basis of a tool designed to generate matrices that describe the nature of SDG interactions for specific nations and regions.

These maps will be used in workshops with policy makers, business executives and NGO officials to evaluate strategies under consideration and assess their anticipated contribution to making progress on the SDGs.