Governance of Sustainability Transformations

To address sustainability challenges related to climate, water, energy, food and biodiversity, transformative changes are needed in the way we think, organise, decide and act. But how to bring such fundamental changes about? Can governments, businesses and civil society organise or steer these transformations? If so, how? What are the types of resistance and barriers to change? How is governance embedded in a turbulent, multi-level and polycentric world?

These are several of the big governance questions that are at the core of this exciting social science programme, which aims to educate future leaders and change-makers in governments, NGOs and academia. You will develop in-depth understanding of the sociological, political and legal dimensions of transformative governance and put this to work through future scenario-building exercises, individual and group-based skill and personal development sessions, an internship, a thesis and more. Small-scale collaborative learning is at the centre of this program in which the constructive dialogue between students and teachers is key. The programme’s embeddedness in one of the world’s leading life sciences university creates ample opportunities for the development of true interdisciplinary skills and science for impact, which are needed to address today’s and future grand sustainability challenges.