Transformational changes in how we think, organize, decide, and act are required to meet sustainability concerns connected to climate, water, energy, food, and biodiversity. But how can such fundamental changes be made? Can these transitions be led by governments, corporations, and civil society organizations? And how can this be done in light of, for instance, escalating populism, urbanization, digitization, and rising inequality? These are a few of the significant governance issues that are at the core of these programs, which aim to educate future leaders in governments, NGOs, and academia.

Sustainable Governance programs for you?

Do you want to be an intermediary between scientific experts, policymakers, and politicians in the domain of sustainability? Do you want to tackle environmental sustainability problems by combining knowledge of natural sciences with an understanding of governance? Are you interested in contributing to the development of the governance solutions required to work towards a sustainable society and assist in putting these answers into action? And do you want to study and work together with students coming from various academic backgrounds? Then Sustainable Governance programs are made for you.

These programs focus on governance theories and transformative change processes for analyzing and contributing to sustainability challenges in climate, economy, politics, and management areas. You will develop skills in new governance structures, you will get a thorough grasp of the social, political, and legal aspects of transformational governance. The program’s embeddedness in one of the world’s leading life sciences universities creates opportunities for the development of true interdisciplinary skills and science for impact, which are needed to address today’s and future grand sustainability challenges.

What do these programs entail?

Academic programs in Sustainable Governance taught at universities around the world, focus on intersecting topics associated with natural sciences, politics, economics, and social sciences. The study programs focus on the analysis, design, and monitoring of governance processes, i.e. mechanisms that help to bring together disparate interests and resources in order to accomplish shared objectives. Various sorts of communal decision-making procedures are combined in governance, where active participation in action coordination is crucial. Through governance, social actors are given the ability to jointly identify and address human-environmental issues while also directing themselves throughout the process.

Both the social science of governance and the natural sciences will be thoroughly studied by you. You will learn how to integrate these perspectives to create regulatory responses to complicated environmental sustainability issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, and the transition to a circular economy. In addition, you will learn a variety of skills required to cope with complex sustainability problems and to develop yourself into a future ‘change agent’ — someone who can apply and communicate natural science insights, while also understanding the governance context.