Harvard Sustainability Science Course

The Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University and Venice International University offers an Advanced Short Course in Sustainability Science open to 30 active researchers selected by Harvard among candidates from Italy, EU, Brazil, China, North America. A prominent international faculty, coordinated by prof. William Clark, will assure an interdisciplinary perspective on the emerging field of sustainability science (May 17-24, 2014).

The Advanced Short Course in Sustainability Science is a new joint initiative of Harvard University, VIU and the Italian Ministry for the Environment, that collaborate on the promotion of Sustainability since 2006. In the frame of the Sustainability Science Seminar Series, this year for the first time the initiative is open to young researchers.

The goal of the course is to provide a comprehensive, interdisciplinary perspective on the emerging field of sustainability science: its theory, research horizons, and practical applications. Thirty participants have been selected from a large group of candidates nominated by international leaders in the field. These participants include young faculty and research staff, post-doctoral students, and advanced doctoral students from the EU, China, Brazil, North America and other regions. They are active researchers in the natural and social sciences, health sciences, and engineering who wish to understand how multiple disciplines are contributing to our understanding of interactive social-environmental systems and to our capacity for guiding such systems in a transition toward sustainability.

Topics to be covered in the course include sustainability as “inclusive human well-being”, a capital assets perspective on the determinants of sustainability (including natural capital, manufactured capital, human capital, social capital, and knowledge capital), the dynamics of social-environmental systems (with special attention to cross-scale connections, tipping points, resilience and vulnerability), challenges of linking knowledge with action, and governance for sustainable development. Applications across regions and sectors will be woven into discussions of the conceptual material.

Faculty:

Prof. William Clark (Harvard University and co-director of its Sustainability Science Program

Prof. Partha Dasgupta (Cambridge University and Science Advisor to the Inclusive Wealth Report)

Prof. Ann Kinzig (Arizona State Univ. and chief of research at its Global Institute of Sustainability)

Prof. Éloi Laurent (Sciences-Po & Stanford Univ., former staff to Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission)

Prof. Kira Matus (London School of Economics and Grantham Inst. on Climate & the Environment)

Prof. Charles Perrings (Arizona State University and director of its Ecoservices Group)