ABSTRACT
Sustainability policy discourse in the United States (US) is very different to the one in Europe. The sort of initiatives that are present in Europe are largely absent in the US, or appear in fragmented form. Resilience for policy-makers in the US means making things bullet proof rather than moving to a different system conceptually. There is a very active and vocal anti-sustainability movement in the US voices its perspectives through various organs of the Republican Party. The boundaries among research, policy, advocacy and lobbying are much more blurred in the US than in Europe. Research funding that is administered through various federal agencies is ultimately accountable to the US Congress. In the US scientific advice to policy-making is to an extent institutionalized through scientific advisory panels—many of the regulatory agencies that deal with issues like food and drug regulation, environmental protection, and automobile safety relied on arrangements for some time.
