This report argues that one of the most effective ways to support sustainable development through research and innovation is to establish large, integrated funding programmes, referred to here as lighthouse programmes. As well as producing impact-oriented knowledge on key sustainability challenges, these programmes would bring many other societal, scientific, and institutional benefits. These include: building closer relationships between science, society, and policy, and encouraging changes in the academic system itself, for example by increasing its capacity for inter- and transdisciplinary research.