The Belmont Forum has released its 2025 Annual Report, reflecting on a year marked by continued growth, strengthened international collaboration, and important steps towards advancing transdisciplinary research for global sustainability. Today, the Forum’s community includes more than 3,924 scientists and societal actors across 94 countries, with 192 projects funded.
In 2025, the Belmont Forum’s portfolio of CRAs in process included 550+ researchers and 390 societal actors, with the participation of 123 funding organisations over 150 countries. These collaborative efforts also contributed to knowledge sharing and dissemination, resulting in 29 journal articles and 52 conference presentations, reflecting the breadth and diversity of collaboration.
Expanding the Belmont Forum’s research portfolio
The Forum also continued to advance its Collaborative Research Actions (CRAs), with seven active CRAs spanning themes including urban transitions, climate and health, cultural heritage, sustainable consumption and production, migration and African-led research.
Two new CRAs were launched: Ocean 2 and Resilience, bringing the total number of CRAs launched to 26. Notably, Ocean 2 has been endorsed as an action of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. In parallel, the Belmont Forum community approved two new CRA themes, Biodiversity 3 and Arctic 3, to enter into the scoping process in 2026.
The Annual Report also highlights the impact emerging from ongoing CRAs. Projects such as COAST Card, SVALUR, and CO-SFSC demonstrate how transdisciplinary approaches can connect scientific knowledge with local experience, policy, communities, and practice, generating solutions that respond to real-world challenges.
Strengthening leadership and building stronger global partnerships
2025 also marked the launch of the Advancing Leadership Program (ALP), a major capacity-building initiative designed to strengthen leadership and communication skills for more effective transdisciplinary collaboration.
The Belmont Forum continued to expand its global network through new memberships and strengthened partnerships. The Forum welcomed the Research Council of Zimbabwe as a new member, broadening representation from the African continent. Additionally, new observers, such as The Degrees Initiative, and strategic associates, including the Inner Development Goals (IDG), joined the Forum’s community.
The year also saw the establishment of the FAST (Funders Aligned for Sustainability Transformations) Forum, creating a space for funders from different sectors to explore greater coordination and alignment of investments in sustainability solutions.
At SRI2025 in Chicago, the Belmont Forum community was strongly represented, with members, associates, observers and Secretariat staff contributing to more than 50 sessions.
Investing in the Forum’s future
One of the key organizational milestones of 2025 was the establishment of the Belmont Forum Foundation (BFF) as a nonprofit funding arm.
The Belmont Forum also continued to advance its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) Statement and Open Data Policy, laying the groundwork for implementation plans to translate these commitments into concrete actions across the Forum.
The report also highlights the continued involvement of early-career researchers across Belmont Forum CRAs. Undergraduate and graduate researchers represented 84% of participants, reflecting the Forum’s role in developing the next generation of transdisciplinary researchers.
Connecting research with policy and society
The Forum’s growing visibility is reflected in its policy and research footprint. In 2025, 16,563 policy documents across 42 countries referenced the Belmont Forum.
At the same time, the Forum continued to strengthen its communication and digital engagement. Its social media channels reached more than 71,000 users, while the newsletter community grew to 3,810 subscribers.
Work also progressed on the redesign of the Belmont Forum website and on improvements to BFgo platform, including multilingual functionality and a new Reviewer Module designed to support a more efficient, consistent, and inclusive review process.
Explore the Belmont Forum 2025 Annual Report to discover the projects, partnerships, people and milestones that shaped the Forum’s work in 2025.
Read the 2025 Annual Report here.