853414 Sustainability: Theories and challenges for doctoral candidates (in Eng.)

Type
Lecture and seminar
Semester hours
2
Lecturer (assistant)
Radinger-Peer, Verena , Plank, Christina
Organisation
Offered in
Sommersemester 2025
Languages of instruction
Englisch
Content

• Sustainability as a normative concept
◦ Historic development of definitions
◦ Related scientific concepts (resilience, circularity, sufficiency, diversity, quality of life, de-growth, responsibility …)
◦ Concepts of sustainability from different cultural backgrounds (buen vivir, integrity of creation…)
◦ Institutionalisation of sustainability (organisations, agreements, processes; e.g. UN SDGs)
• Sustainability as theory of change
◦ Theories of transformation and change
◦ Societal dynamics between stability and development
◦ Drivers of change, leverage points of intervention
◦ Grand Challenges and Global Change
◦ Justice and equity in the context of sustainability and change
◦ Transformation pathways
• Sustainability and Doctoral research
◦ Sustainability research as a scientific discipline vs. integrated principle
◦ Transformation research vs. transformative research
◦ Methodological approaches and challenges (systems thinking, case studies, participatory research, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity…)
◦ Sustainability relevance of research
◦ Normative expectations and freedom of research
◦ Conflicts and synergies between research practices and sustainability
Objective (expected results of study and acquired competences)

•Participants are familiar with relevant theoretical foundations of sustainability
•Participants understand the challenges of integrating sustainability into scientific research processes
•Participants can relate their own research work to concepts of sustainability
You can find more details like the schedule or information about exams on the course-page in BOKUonline.