The Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Gdansk promises an intensive year in 2025, rich in events, international collaborations and new initiatives for sustainability, climate protection and supporting social action.
The Energy Transition Lab is a Centre’s programme that helps to understand what the energy transition in the European Union is all about and to identify opportunities for public engagement in building sustainable and resilient places to live. CZRUG Director Sylwia Mrozowska, PhD, DSc, Prof. UG, was appointed its coordinator. As part of the Energy Transition Lab, the Centre will participate, among others, in the 2nd Baltic Nuclear Energy Forum, presenting the project ‘Nuclear Power Plant Neighbourhood’.
The International Co-operation programme (co-ordinated by Elżbieta Czapka, PhD) will bring together interesting scientists from abroad. In May, Pierina Benavente from the Pandemic Center in Bergen will come to Gdańsk to share her research experience. A visit by Prof Corey Dolgon, who will give a unique ‘singing lecture’, is also planned for the spring.
Later in January 2025, the More-than-Human Studies Lab (coordinator: Irena Chawrilska, PhD) will officially launch its activities. It is a programme of open, transnational, collaboration between academia, arts organisations and NGOs that will explore how we can create new and different scenarios of life on our planet in the turbulent times of the 21st century. The programme will be inaugurated on 30 January 2025 under the theme: ‘New Solidarities in the More-than-Human World’. Prior to that, a lecture by Professor Michael Marder, entitled ‘The Growth, Decay, and Metamorphoses of Plant-Thinking’, will take place on 13 January.
The development of international cooperation is also a key objective of the Migration Observatory (coordinator: Rafał Raczyński, PhD), which is starting cooperation with Torrens University in Australia and the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre. Meetings presenting migrant communities from Pomerania will be organised, as well as a photo exhibition on migrant life in cities.
As part of the Education for Sustainable Development programme (coordinated by Dawid Weisbrodt, PhD), there will be a photographic exhibition devoted to the environmental problems of the Arctic and a youth survey on the perception of the contemporary environmental crisis.
The Centre is also actively involved in cooperation with NGOs. The Cooperation with the Social Environment programme (coordinator: Bartosz Duraj) will once again be a partner of the Pomeranian Forum for Non-Governmental Initiatives 2025 and the 5th Pomeranian Social Animation Forum. Both events will provide an opportunity to exchange experience and develop cooperation for social action.
As part of the Internship Programme (Coordinator: Barbara Kijewska, PhD, Prof. UG), an action promoting student internships at the UG Centre for Sustainable Development will take place at the beginning of the summer semester 2024/2025. All students interested in shaping the attitudes of the academic community towards the implementation of sustainable development goals are invited.
In addition, the podcast ‘Leave no one behind’, produced in collaboration with the UG student radio station MORS, will premiere in 2025. The UG Centre for Sustainable Development not only develops international cooperation, but also strengthens its position as a leader in educational and social activities in Pomerania, promoting the ideas of sustainable development and social inclusion.
We would like to thank all our collaborators, participants of our events, stakeholders and institutional partners for a very good 2024 and invite you to cooperate and participate in our initiatives in 2025. We also look forward to ideas, concepts, recommendations – let’s do something together in 2025!