Environmental protection and natural resource management are the basic principles for the overall development and sustainability of any nation in the world. The prudent use and conservation of natural resources such as water, land, soil, plants, and animals touch a multitude of industries, from agriculture and mining to tourism, fishing, and forestry. The prominence of this research domain is vast as it directly deals with ecosystem and sustainability studies including but not limited to pollution, flooding, biodiversity conservation, nuclear energy, drought, coastal restoration, and the mission to mitigate the potential adverse effects of mismanagement. This allied field of science is apt to comprehend the reciprocal interactions that exist between the reactions occurring in the environment that are linked with the natural element cycle and at the same time reflect both natural processes and human impacts. It also encompasses socio-economic and technical issues at the global, national, regional and local levels in the framework of sustainable development. Management of the innate resources sustainably is obligatory for avoiding further destruction and degradation, to decipher the water balance inconvenience and to advance national economy as well as living standards. The effective natural resource management amidst the SCO nations is possible upon achieving the milestones of improved resource governance and sustainability, amplified responsibility, increased involvement of the SCO members in the cross-border R&D projects to resolve the common environmental and resource management disputes by tactical mechanism. This approach can reduce competition for resources and promote sustainable livelihood among the SCO members. Suitable environmental protection laws, revealing the authorized norms for the protection of the environment, by means of envisioning undesirable ramifications on nature are prerequisite to safeguard the environment and the mankind. This thematic area aims to promote research alliance in all the aspects of environment and natural resources protection amongst the SCO member states.

Artificial intelligence (AI), based on machine learning and deep learning frameworks has pervaded every aspect of our lives. Natural language processing, image, and pattern recognition, stock markets, customer preferences, etc are some of the areas where enormous amounts of data, i.e Big data, is being generated in real-time. These are the domains where AI based techniques, combined with big data, have already made a huge impact. Emerging areas of research where AI and big data are beginning to make an impact are materials discovery, drug discovery, climate modeling, and medicine/health sector. The artificial intelligence and big-data research and application theme will promote the discovery of novel materials, lead to new ways of diagnosing and treating diseases, and help in mitigating climate problems, among other deliverables and thus help the SCO member states to forge new directions in these domains.

The sustainable energy systems are novel anthropogenic innovations conceived with the major goals to provide clean, reasonable, and accessible energy with a benign impact on the environment. The need to preserve the environment while parallelly powering the present and future is of utmost precedence today, which can be achieved by sustainable energy systems and storage mechanisms. Such innovations can balance the three pillars of sustainability: economic viability, environmental protection, and social equity. Consequently overall benefits like encroachment in technologies, resource conservation, higher employment opportunities, improvement in the health and medical facilities, self-sustainability and increased standard of living are most likely. From a broader perspective, Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) in this domain through mega-projects within SCO member states can directly benefit from the economic standpoint. Alternatively, sharing knowledge at SCO common platform can ignite the SCO young minds to find a way-out to materialize and operate sustainable energy systems and storage possibilities employing local process inputs and human resources rooting towards the judicious 'Vocal for Local' notion. R&D in this direction can contribute to subjugate Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Global Warming, which are unanimously the high priority concerns worldwide. Besides, development and awareness of state-of-art energy storage systems/devices play a central role in enabling a consistent power source for sustainable energy and livelihood. Storage systems including but not limited to thermal/mechanical systems/ pumped hydropower are imperative to deliver continual access to high-quality energy facilities for all entities, security of energy supplies in the short- medium- and long-term, facilitate a transition to a more sustainable energy future and to introduce renewable energy sources to reduce health and environmental impacts. Sustainable energy and energy storage theme will promote research and innovation in this promising domain and to be able to fulfill the pressing need of SCO member states for affordable and clean energy services.

In a world made smaller by ease of travel, diseases particularly the communicable ones, are becoming a global healthcare problem. Coordinated efforts to understand the emergence of new diseases as well as discovering new therapies for currently incurable diseases is the need of the hour. In addition to this, disease management practices give the cultural, economic, and geographical diversity is also an important area that can benefit from scientific exchanges. Thus, this SCO conclave envisages to bridge these gaps by promoting scientific collaboration and information sharing among the participating countries.