In 2014, the symposium coincided the end of the United Nations worldwide Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) spanning from 2005‐2014. This coincidence provoked the organizers of the symposium to entitle the 2014 symposium: “Science Education Research and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)”. This title simultaneously maintained and further developed many topics of the past symposia from 2002‐2012, in which we discussed the orientations and directions of science education research, questions of contemporary and successful science learning, and the role of research on science teacher education for it. The symposium revealed all these aspects even more in connection to goals and strategies focusing Education for Sustainable Development within science education.