Member Schools

During the last two years, public discussion around sustainability issues such as climate change, plastic waste, and economic and gender inequality have intensified. Prominent examples are social movements such as the Fridays for Future marches, calls for institutional change such as “New Green Deals,” the recent success of Green parties, and debates around new sustainable technologies such as utility-​scale storage of renewable energy, bioplastics, or electric vehicles. Capitalizing on this increasing attention to sustainability issues while successfully developing and diffusing sustainable technologies requires coordinated, constructive, and interdisciplinary interaction between research and society.

This year’s academy focuses on technological, organizational, and institutional changes for sustainability. We provide a unique platform for junior researchers (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) with a background in engineering, management, economics, and political sciences to present their work to an audience of diverse yet like-​minded scholars and an international faculty with a record of accomplishments in research on energy and climate policy, environmental entrepreneurship and business, and sustainable technologies. Participants obtain detailed feedback on their research design, theoretical approaches, and methodology. In addition, we provide plenty of room for informal discussions and networking with other junior scholars and professors. Students in previous years have come from, amongst others, EPFL Lausanne, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford University, Stanford University, the Technical University of Munich, and the University of Cambridge.